So tonight one of the guys on the frisbee team was celebrating his birthday from last month. Let's just say I had a great time!!!
First off, the ticket to entrance was a picture from your time as a kid. I had my awesome mommy send me some pictures to use, and was delightfully invited in. Roman, the birthday boy, took all the pictures and taped them to the wall in his kitchen for all to see. Next to the area where he posted all of the kid pictures was the area from the last party's theme: first place certificates.
There were a ton of certificates from the previous party-goers showing their proficiency in something: Benno with running, nonstop, for fifteen minutes (!!!!) Roman only for five, Lars' proficiency in boating, I can't remember who got 3rd place in a bike race, but nonetheless, they were all pretty awesome, and the kid pictures just added to the decorations. Definitely planning on doing this when/if I ever I get a place to my own.
But yeah, it was a great time. Another sidenote: playing linguistic drinking games with native speakers really sticks it to you. We played 'Ja, Nein'. Long story short, if you say Ja (yes) or Nein (no) or anything close to, then you drink. Needless to say, I wasn't doing so hot for the most part. But it was really funny seeing everyone trip each other into saying one of the forbidden words. Not only was it beneficial to language learning, it punished my liver. Fun times abound!!!
I did also get a fair amount language training in tonight as well. Overall, TONS of hören (listening) training went down. Plenty of times I felt like a complete idiot standing next to people as they talked and had full comprehension of what was going on, and I was just standing there like an idiot clinging onto the two or three words I actually understood. The listening to native German speakers is probably the hardest thing about learning the language, I guarantee it.
But other times, I did get to speak a little bit. I got to talk with a couple people, and that was nice. Topics from the night included: colloquial terms for using the bathroom, popularity of sports in the U.S. and Europe, school system, difficulty of sports and participation, and a bunch of other stuff. The times where I actually get to try and use my language skills are really nice. Yeah, it may sound like total crap to a native speaker, but the putting-it-into-practice aspect really helps me see what may be right and what may be wrong.
Long story short, I had a great night!!!
Sidenote: there was a guy that puked on the U-bahn going home. That was the first time I've seen anything of the like in my time here. End sidenote.
Original Publish Date: September 21st, 2013