My week: April 26 ed.

-Following last week's party, I did a little bit more celebrating of my birthday, meeting some friends for dinner.

-I had German class and met with my tandem partner. I really want to up the ante so I found some additional tandem partners. However, I went a different route: I wanted to practice via Skype. My schedule is already jam-packed as it is but I want to put my German learning into high drive since I want to practice speaking 4-7 times a week. I was able to find three new tandem partners who are keen to try conversation via Skype. I figure that I can cram in about 20 minutes of Skyping before I turn in for the night. The nice thing is that they're local so if we can find a time that works, we can meet in person too. Who knows? Maybe we will become friends, too. I'm always up for more friends :)

I found myself with a small amount of "extra" time this weekend so I met with A, one of the tandem speaking partners. I keep telling myself that I'll always ask the speaking partner if we can speak German first because it's too easy to start and continue in English. I found that to be the case with today's meeting; we started with an interesting conversation in English and I hated to break up the flow so 3/4 of the conversation continued in English. We did get some German in too though and it was quite productive.

The clerk at the cafe recognized me and said that my German continues to improve. It cracks me up that I'm a "regular" after only three visits. Or, maybe it's an anomaly that an American speaks an intermediate(ish) level of German that I stick out? ;-P  I have to admit that I don't run across many Americans who are B1 level or higher so maybe it is a bit of a rarity; shame on us! Then again, I (somewhat purposefully) don't run with a crowd with a high composition of Americans, either, so perhaps my sample size is not valid.

-Moo had a Friseurtermin. In other words, he received his annual shaving. Both of us are relieved that he's not so hairy any more. The same lady who shaved him last year did it again this year. She really likes Moo and her husband does too but this year, the husband wasn't able to come since he was too tired. He was quite disappointed. I think that the Moo Fan Club continues to grow and grow.

-I went to the Maimarkt in Mannheim with my friend C. More to follow about that. This is the third year I've attended and it's always a great time.

-Things are going to get really crazy for me next week. I'm starting a new German course and it will run concurrently with the existing one for the duration of a month. I'm already really pressed for time and there are some projects I have going on that need my attention. (It makes total sense to take on more tandem speaking experiences, or not, huh?) I also have plans to travel for work. Yay! It will be to conduct in-person training, which has such a nicer, personal touch than the cold, sterile, and buggy experience of teaching online. I expect to be insanely busy until September as a result of all of this. Perhaps it will keep me out of trouble.