My week: November 8 ed.

This week, my schedule returned to being super busy again. The German class at the uni began. I noticed that our teacher held a doctorate degree so I resigned myself to the idea that we might be stuck in "siezen," which means using the formal manner of address and I'd have to call her Frau Doktor Sowieso or something like that. For language classes, I don't feel that aids communication; it creates such a formal environment and students might not feel so free to speak.


I was very relieved when she asked us if we wanted siezen or duzen (the informal version). Everyone immediately chose the latter. Yay!


It was also a welcome reunion with one of the classmates I've known from two other uni classes. I also ran into two women from one of the social groups where I spend time. It's a small world, especially at the uni!


This is the first uni class where I've felt confident at the beginning. I'm not doing so much translating in my head; instead, I'm spending more time where I'm listening/thinking in German. With the previous classes, I had moments of panic while trying to understand the teacher. I do still get stuck without the vocabulary to express some more complex ideas in class but for most situations, I can say what I want to.


-My German tandem partner and I met up for dinner. The restaurant we wanted to visit was closed so we went to an Asian restaurant instead. The experience was a bit nuts. The staff working there didn't exactly speak English nor did they exactly speak German so we encountered a lot of misunderstandings as a result.


My friend asked for tea without sugar. Instead, she received tea with sugar so my friend told the waitress the tea was wrong. The waitress didn't believe her! To make the situation even more absurd, the waitress wanted to test the tea herself to see if there was sugar in it. This was after my friend had already drank some. I think my eyes just about bugged out of my head and my friend corroborated this later; she said that the shocked look on my face was hilarious.


My friend allowed the waitress to test the tea and grudgingly, the waitress agreed that there was sugar in the tea and agreed to bring a new one. All of this was for a two euro cup of tea. Of course I was in shock because what waitress in America would do such a thing -- she'd just bring a new tea and not demand to taste it to see if the customer was lying! Oh, Germany, sometimes you take the cake. Yes, the waitress is not from Germany originally, but I've seen German wait staff act as if the customer is always wrong too.


-I took Moo to the vet because he has a cyst on his lip and a fatty tumor on his hind leg. The vet will operate to remove both. He had a tumor on a different part of the same leg removed last year. I joke that he doesn't think that I spend enough money on him so he grows these tumors to give the vet some business. I hope the surgery takes care of everything.