My week: February 28 ed.

Here was another jam-packed week. I'm not sure how long I'm going to have the energy to keep up this schedule but I'm learning tons, hanging out with many people, and feeling connected, so it's worth it so far.

-I invited my tandem partner over for dinner and made Persian food, thanks to the canned Ghourmeh Sabsi I bought when I was in Freiburg. Moo was thrilled to see my friend; he actually ran into the hallway and twined around her legs. She spoils him with many moo treats and has won her way into his heart (not that he's hard to impress :)

-I started meeting with some new tandem partners. Since I spend so much time sitting, I suggested that we take walks while we talk. With J, we walk around the TU's campus and into the woods. It's an added benefit to learn the trails better and he's a pleasant conversation partner. Even better yet? He wants to meet as much as possible because he's working on his English. That's great for me because I want to level-up on my German. I also joined the language meeting group too.

-We had a new teacher in German class this week. Several of us were a bit disappointed. She is very nice and knowledgeable and I think she'll do a good job, but we really enjoyed the energy and the style of the first teacher. Oh well.

-I took a trip to Mannheim to celebrate a friend's birthday. On the way, I ate lunch at Safran, a Persian/Afghani restaurant, visited the art museum, and lost myself in Thalia, the book store.

Can I say how much I love book stores and libraries? Normally I'm too cheap frugal to buy books because when I have time I'm a voracious reader and that could get expensive. However, I've gone back to buying books for my German classes because it's required. It's a wonderful feeling to wander among the Thalia bookshelves and it's made even better by the store's selection of local history books too. I'm so tempted to buy some of the Pfalz hiking books for maps of the nearby trails.

I did have an experience that was utter Quatsch though: I wanted to buy some advanced level vocabulary flashcards but could only find A1-A2 level cards. I asked a store employee for higher level cards and he made a cursory search. Since he couldn't find any, he self-assuredly declared that they must not exist because German students learn all the vocabulary in A1-2. Um, nonsense! People know about 1,000 words in those levels but speakers need thousands more of words to be fluent and each level introduces many more words. There is no way that a person could learn everything in only two levels. Argh - it's frustrating. I wish he'd just admitted that he couldn't find it or didn't know the answer. So, if you know of German-English flashcards for B1 and above, please comment with the name and publisher.