My Accent

I have an American accent. I had never thought much about it before I came to Germany, but now everyone I meet points it out.
My accent is so strong that it literally defines me. I was in German class, and the teacher told us to pick out someone and describe them using a specific grammatical element.
The lady from Albania described me as "The light-haired, blue-eyed girl with the American accent".
Another time, a kid at school was looking for me in the classroom. I was sitting behind someone else, so he couldn't see me, but he stood up and asked, "Where's the girl with the accent?".

When I was in Austria, I didn't understand a word anyone said. Once, we were sitting in a ski lift with a few other people. They were talking among themselves in something that was kind of like high German. I understood a decent amount, but not as much as usual. I can usually understand everything. Then a guys telephone rang, and he answers and starts talking in a language that I didn't recognize at all. I couldn't understand a single thing he said. Nothing.
Turns out that's Austrian German.

I have a friend from Switzerland who was in Alaska on exchange last year. I recently messaged him to tell him that I was going to his city during our Eurotour. I messaged him in German because we both speak German, right? Oh boy was I wrong. I had to switch to English halfway through because we couldn't understand each other at all.

Then there are the local dialects of German. In the area that I live in, people speak Hessisch. I've been able to learn quite a bit of it, but sometimes when older people talk to me, I can't understand a word they are saying. IT sounds like extreme mumbling. Another time I was talking to a guy that lives farther south from me. He is from Bavaria. I told him that German was really hard and it kind of sucks to learn. He said "I know. I speak Bavarian. My German is really bad".

On the other hand, I have a friend from Northern Germany. He doesn't like talking to me in Germany because I don't speak 'real' German.

Just goes to show ya.

My English is too bad to form any more sentences.

More soon!

Austria

On Saturday night I got home from Austria. I got to go on a week-long ski trip in the Alps. It was so amazing.
But it was a lot of work too. My counselor arranged the whole thing, but he forgot to tell me about it. So, I week before we left I still didn't know anything. I ended up getting some snow stuff from my first host family, and that helped a lot, but I couldn't find any snow pants that I could borrow. And it really doesn't help that I'm fairly short with fairly large hips. I ended up having to buy myself a pair, which isn't tooooo bad considering I'm Alaskan, and I can always use them at home. It's different than a Mexican buying snowpants.

The drive there is usually a 6 or 7 hour drive in a bus, shorter in a car. It took us 11 and a half hours to get there. And because I was going with the 7th grade class for my school, I got to sit in a bus with 50 13 year old... For 11 and a half hours.... I'm surprised I still had hair when we got there.

My counselor was supposed to bring ski socks for me with him, but he forgot them, so we went and bought new ones for both of us. We also ended up having to rent me new shoes because the ones that I had from the school cut off the circulation to my feet.

The first day of skiing, I was with with the beginners group. We used snow blades the first day, which are kind of like half-skis, and they are good to learn on. I got the hang of that pretty fast, and the second day we used the real skis. Skiing is strange. I've always been a snowboarder, not a skier. I did cross country skiing when I was younger, but this was even strange. It is almost the exact opposite of snowboarding, only 100 times easier. If you ever want to learn how to downhill ski, I suggest you learn how to snowboard first. Or learn German. Because after you do something as hard as that, you can do anything.

The third day I got to go with one of the more advanced groups, and it was absolutely exhausting. I was DEAD by the end of the day. The next day, I went with tha group again, and we did a run through deep snow. I don't know what it was, but that made me completely understand. All of a sudden, everything just clicked and I could ski. It's still far from perfect, but it was something.

Unfortunately, my counselor had an accident while skiing. He fell, and hurt a muscle in his thigh. I don't know exactly what it was, because I haven't spoken with him yet, but he was picked up on Wednesday and taken back to Germany so he could go to the hospital. I hurt Myles too. I fell so where, but I didn't realize it until I took my skis off and practically fell over because I couldn't walk on my knee. I sat out for a day of skiing, and it's still a little sore, but I skied for the rest of the time.

Overall, I had a really amazing week, and I'm so glad that I got to go on that trip.