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This days journal will be in English, for two reasons. I have limited time and lots to say, but mostly because this will be my last regular blog entry. Mark arrives tomorrow, and in the next three days, this trip transforms itself from my personal adventure into a family vacation. So it will be much less interesting. Plus, I miss him, he misses me, and if you think I'm going to spend two hours a day on the internet after he arrives, you are certifiably nuts. I may pop on for a note or two, but don't count on it. Since I am aware that virtually all my readers read English, and that not all read German without the limited help of the online translation software, it seems most appropriate to post in English today. I've visited, between last Friday and today, three important museums in the Bonn/Köln area. Friday I went to the Haus der Geschichte, which is in the Musuemsmeile section of Bonn. This musuem traces the history of the country from 1945 to the present time. Kind of like the Jewish Museum in Berlin, this museum leads you throught the time periods, as you walk through. The museum is in German alone, but you can buy one of two guides in English as you come it. I bought one of the guides, but in German, and set about reading the various exhibits. Warning. This is not possible. This museum has so much to offer, so much stuff, that I'm pretty sure it's really impossible to see it all. You can, though, get a great feel for the sweep of history and narrow down to a few things you want to see well. That is, you can manage this in a two hour visit. It's very impressive. Today I visited two Museums that I wanted to see, and which I am pretty sure I won't have time to see with Mark. The first was the Romisch-Germanisch museum, which is full of stuff from Roman Colonial Köln. Indeed KÖln got it's name, Colonia, because it achieved Colony status (very big thing) in the Roman Empire. This happened because the emperor married a local gal and did this to make her happy. The big attraction here is the Dionysus Mosaic, which the museum was built around, a huge, mostly intact mosaic floor. Pretty impressive, compared to mosaics I've seen in Naples and Pompeii. Then I went to the Museum Ludwig, which I am sure Mark won't want to visit since it is all very modern art, and has a huge Picasso collection. It's also expensive; my student entry was €5,50. They do, however, have an impressive Dali, from his religous Art period, which I am particularly of. The picture is Der Bahnhof von Perpignan. It is very cool, and there is a picture on the net, but not really good. If you like modern art, particularly Picasso, this is a very interesting museum. Alas I did not have time to get to two of the four floors at all, and only saw a part of the floors I saw, but I got to see the Dali and a bunch of great Picassos. Looking Back Since this is my last official blog entry, let me take a minute and look back at the experience I've had over the last almost eight weeks. Just the experience of this kind of very intensive immersion training is a very special thing. As my generation would say it'a a real rush. Before I left I had several people tell me this would be the case, that it would make a big difference, but I was a tad skeptical, not at all sure I could learn that fast. Particularly in Berlin, but also here in Bonn, I've really felt there has been a huge amount of growth in my ability to use the language, and I hear from others that my use of the language has gotten better. This latter is very difficult for me to guage. If I've had any frustration, it has been that my progress is a little uneven. My understanding of speech and written word, and my ability to speak freely, are clearly much better, to the point where I feel like I have a usable language now, not just an academic language. As I said weeks ago in Berlin, I now feel like I speak German, where before I did not. My grammar has improved significantly slower, possibly because grammatical mistakes become habits and are harder to break, and partly because I have become more aware of the scope of the grammar and the language before me. I'm like a little girl in Daddy's car, who one day becomes tall enough to see out the window (stay with me here, I was born before carseats). Suddenly she can see that there is much more out there than just this little passenger compartment. So I have a much better feel for what there is yet to learn and to work on, which is probably appropriate at the end of the Mittlestufe, no? Which leads me to my next topic: Where do I go from here? This is a question I've been asking myself since about a week ago, when I checked the Goethe Website in Washington and realized that the only good class in the spring (C.1.1) is on Thursday evenings. Alas my Thursday evenings are all booked, into essentially eternity (Joke here, I have church commitments) so there won't be a class to go to every week. Anyway I do want to work heavily on grammar, since I really feel that is my weakest point. Our teacher assures me that it is everyone's weakest point, but that doesn't make me not want to work hard on it. So I'm trying to figure out how to work through winter spring and summer, and pick up with B.2.3 hopefully not on Thursdays, in the fall. Listening and Reading understanding skills, thanks to the internet, are relatively easy to practice, even on a daily basis. Between podcasts and internet newspapers, supplemented by the ton of books I'm bringing home (I bought most of my sightseeing and museuem books auf Deutsch, plus I have a couple others), I have plenty to hear and learn. And when I'm getting a salary again, I hope we'll get Satellite with German TV. For writing work, while I won't be blogging, I will be putting up a website, and will use this journal, plus my more detailed personal journal, and such to construct it. I have not gone back and corrected my existing journal so far, so I can see what has happened before, but I will. But now, I must go, so I will try to spend some limited time tomorrow finishing my thoughts here. Tschüss. Post a comment in response: |
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