Friday and the whole weekend was quite exciting, I must say. Class on Friday was a bit boring and we took a test. It's no more fun in German than in English...
But Friday afternoon was a blast. We were playing a game based on a German idiomatic expression "für einen Apfel und ein Ei" (For an apple and an egg). The basic jist was that each group had an apple and an egg and went down in to town to try and trade them for bigger and better things and then come back to see what everyone else had gotten.
I was in a group of four, and the only one out of us who could speak any German, so we relied on me to do all the talking.
At first we were pretty successful. We traded an egg for a bag of corn chips, and the guy told us how to tell if an egg is raw or cooked. Just spin it and if it spins fast, then its cooked. So that was cool. We tried to go into town hall to see the mayor again, but there was a wedding so we figured the tourist info building next door would work just as well. Not so much... The woman kind of looked at us, and then went back into another room, came out with "Bad Laasphe Water" and traded it for the apple. I'm pretty sure the water was free, but whatever.
Soon we had some tic tacs and a set of eyeglass screwdrivers. Nothing much, and one store owner gave us a really cheap ornament for free. Somehow, though, we got behind some of the other groups and the shopkeepers were getting a bit grumpy. So we were like, where else can we go but this street? The hotel of course.
From up on our mountain, you can see this big building with "Hotel" spelled across the top that is at the foot of the neighboring mountain with Bad Laasphe in the middle. We just walked towards it, but got a bit turned around and we saw these two women talking. I go up to them and ask "How do you get to the Hotel?" The woman gave me this really weird look and asked me if I meant the one on the hill, and I was like "yeah, pretty much."
So we got the directions [there was a path literally ten feet behind the woman] and made our way up to it. After accidentally going into the Assisted Living Home next door, we realized which building it was. The one covered in weeds and broken things. The great hotel with nice staff was in fact filled with an empty pool and an overgrown Biergarten.
That was loads of fun though. But we realized it wasn't the greatest part of town and headed back down to the old city. Back to our friend in the Russian store.
We waltzed into the Radio Museum in the town too, completely unaware that it was closed. The door was wide open! But the guy was super chill about it. He asked me what country I was from or what language I spoke, I said English, and he asked if I was from England. Apparently I'm not an obvious obvious American. Even though they were closed, he offered to show us around and we didn't have time, but he said he'd let us back in for half price whenever we wanted!
We saw this great bookstore, but no one was in it. Saw an awesome map book and stuff. Really really interesting. Too bad we didn't get to talk to the guy who ran it, he was really nice according to all the other groups.
Our more or less final stop was a free trade store. We go in and I explain our game, hoping maybe the woman has a pen or something. But she started to talk about the store and how it is free trade and all the profits, the 20 elderly women who run it don't make anything, go towards helping people across the world. She was so sweet and asked us about why we were here. She, like the other guy, asked if I was from England. Nope, America!
But she and her friend, who came over after a bit, just kept talking to us (me really) and it was so great. They tried out their English and the one newer woman said that every time her grandkids heard her speak English they told her to stop because it was so accented. It really wasn't awful, she just thought over each word a lot.
But anyhow, she started talking to us about our scholarship and what we thought of Bad Laasphe too. She went on for a while about the important art installation that is in town. It was put together by a Bavarian student and someone else and apparently people came all the way from New York (or would have to, the translation was iffy) to see it. She was super proud and we thought there was only one bit of it, but there was another piece in the river that she told us to go see. Naturally that was pretty much the next and last thing we did that afternoon.
Really really fun. Awesome way to build confidence and extroversion skills.
Much more happened that Friday, but this post is already waaay too long, so you'll have to wait until tomorrow.
But Friday afternoon was a blast. We were playing a game based on a German idiomatic expression "für einen Apfel und ein Ei" (For an apple and an egg). The basic jist was that each group had an apple and an egg and went down in to town to try and trade them for bigger and better things and then come back to see what everyone else had gotten.
I was in a group of four, and the only one out of us who could speak any German, so we relied on me to do all the talking.
At first we were pretty successful. We traded an egg for a bag of corn chips, and the guy told us how to tell if an egg is raw or cooked. Just spin it and if it spins fast, then its cooked. So that was cool. We tried to go into town hall to see the mayor again, but there was a wedding so we figured the tourist info building next door would work just as well. Not so much... The woman kind of looked at us, and then went back into another room, came out with "Bad Laasphe Water" and traded it for the apple. I'm pretty sure the water was free, but whatever.
Soon we had some tic tacs and a set of eyeglass screwdrivers. Nothing much, and one store owner gave us a really cheap ornament for free. Somehow, though, we got behind some of the other groups and the shopkeepers were getting a bit grumpy. So we were like, where else can we go but this street? The hotel of course.
From up on our mountain, you can see this big building with "Hotel" spelled across the top that is at the foot of the neighboring mountain with Bad Laasphe in the middle. We just walked towards it, but got a bit turned around and we saw these two women talking. I go up to them and ask "How do you get to the Hotel?" The woman gave me this really weird look and asked me if I meant the one on the hill, and I was like "yeah, pretty much."
So we got the directions [there was a path literally ten feet behind the woman] and made our way up to it. After accidentally going into the Assisted Living Home next door, we realized which building it was. The one covered in weeds and broken things. The great hotel with nice staff was in fact filled with an empty pool and an overgrown Biergarten.
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| Want a beer? |
That was loads of fun though. But we realized it wasn't the greatest part of town and headed back down to the old city. Back to our friend in the Russian store.
We waltzed into the Radio Museum in the town too, completely unaware that it was closed. The door was wide open! But the guy was super chill about it. He asked me what country I was from or what language I spoke, I said English, and he asked if I was from England. Apparently I'm not an obvious obvious American. Even though they were closed, he offered to show us around and we didn't have time, but he said he'd let us back in for half price whenever we wanted!
We saw this great bookstore, but no one was in it. Saw an awesome map book and stuff. Really really interesting. Too bad we didn't get to talk to the guy who ran it, he was really nice according to all the other groups.
Our more or less final stop was a free trade store. We go in and I explain our game, hoping maybe the woman has a pen or something. But she started to talk about the store and how it is free trade and all the profits, the 20 elderly women who run it don't make anything, go towards helping people across the world. She was so sweet and asked us about why we were here. She, like the other guy, asked if I was from England. Nope, America!
But she and her friend, who came over after a bit, just kept talking to us (me really) and it was so great. They tried out their English and the one newer woman said that every time her grandkids heard her speak English they told her to stop because it was so accented. It really wasn't awful, she just thought over each word a lot.
But anyhow, she started talking to us about our scholarship and what we thought of Bad Laasphe too. She went on for a while about the important art installation that is in town. It was put together by a Bavarian student and someone else and apparently people came all the way from New York (or would have to, the translation was iffy) to see it. She was super proud and we thought there was only one bit of it, but there was another piece in the river that she told us to go see. Naturally that was pretty much the next and last thing we did that afternoon.
Really really fun. Awesome way to build confidence and extroversion skills.
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| The Main Attraction |
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| In the River |
Looks like so much fun! haha you should def tell us what you ended up getting from the trade thing
ReplyDeleteO well, we didn't end up with much of anything, haha. We got a taxi ride up the mountain, this really cheap children's necklace, and some leftover tic tacs, which we traded for postcards back at the Schloss.
ReplyDelete