German blog!

So, I've been writing a blog in German. At first I wanted it to be like this one, just sort of like a journal, but then I decided it would be better if I was writing about the differences in the German and American cultures that I see everyday. After all, I'm sort of here not just to learn German, but to also learn the culture. You can find the link on the right hand side of my blog, really close to the top. But, everything in it is in German.

20.02.10

The 21th of February was the last day of the Berlinale (Berlin's annual international film festival), so today I first did some quick shopping with my host family, sent my boyfriend a postcard, and ran to the Zoo Palast (a movie theater (by a zoo, hence the name)). To be honest, running would be a bad hyperbole in this case, because it's a 40 minute bus ride there. Of course, for the time that I wasn't on the bus, I was at least walking hurriedly. The Zoo Palast was only selling tickets for that day, but the movie I wanted to see was the next day, so I went to a different place, called the Urania, and they told me that the movie was sold out earlier that morning. Yay! But, I got some tickets to a different movie at least. The ticket was only €3, that made me happy. Oh, and I was also really lucky today! I just so happened to have my camera out and ready at the exact moment I found someone driving on the sidewalk!



I also finally bought a Russian book.

We had company over later on. My host mom's two friends came over (who are married to each other), and it was really nice. The wife had lost her voice, but the husband was making up for it. He was born and grew up in Algeria, and his first language is Algerian, a sort of Arabic. In school he learned French (unless I'm wrong, all of the courses were held in French), and he came to Germany at some point in time, without speaking any German, and eventually just learned it. I had a really interesting time talking to him. He introduced a new idea to me... he said how much German I should learn depends on what I want to do with it. Someone who just wanted to well... basically do nothing else with German again in their life, does't have to learn that much German here, but someone who wants to use it in their daily life (by living here or something), needs to learn a LOT... it makes sense. I don't want to go home and be like, "oh I know a little bit of German". I want to go home and be talking to all of the German exchange students in German, and then hopefully be able to attend a German university... and he was reading an Arabic book to me. My host mom had been studying Arabic during her time studying in a university, and had a book with French on one page, and the same text in Arabic on the other. So, he was trying to have me read the French out loud, and he was correcting me. Then he would read the Arabic, and I would repeat him. I learned and remember how to say "elephant" in Arabic, but I already forgot how to say rabbit and crow...

21.02.10

I went to the Berlinale movie, called This Way of Life, and got there 10 minutes before the theater should've opened. I say "should've", because it was already open. And I managed to get tickets then for the movie that was sold out before. But, the first movie was really good. It's a documentary about the life of a family living in New Zealand, and it's all a true story. Over the course of the movie, their house is first sold while they're still living in it (it was in the family for seven generations, and the grandfather isn't getting along well with the father, and the grandfather happens to own the house and the land around it), they were harassed, someone tried jumping in their window, their house was set on fire by an arsonist, they moved into a camper by a river (I think it was by a river at least), they moved into a shed, the father started a business with horses, the family's wild horses in the mountains were stolen (30 or so), and they moved into a house. It was really a wonderful movie though, and it really brought you close to the people. Which was helped by the fact that it was all actually real. The mother and one of the sons (they had six kids or so) was there, and the son said that they all lived in a tepee on a hill now, surrounded by 60 horses. They weren't happy in the home, because they all had their own rooms, and would play in there alone, and wouldn't spend as much time together as a family. So, in the end, this family is really... together. They are the essence of that word. It's really a beautiful story, and I'm not even going to try to describe why, you guys just have to watch it yourself. I got to talk with the makers of the movie afterwards, and they were talking to an American company about mass producing it like how they would with a Tom Cruise movie (I just don't know the word for that, basically they will make DVDs and put it in theaters, if everything goes right). Here's a linkto the film's website. Oh, and I got the mother and the cameraman to sign my entrance ticket! Oh, and I totally forgot. In line to get the tickets, I met this nice lady and her daughter. The daughter is 18 and is hopefully going to New Zealand next year as an Au Pair.

The second movie was "Sons of Babylon". It wasn't as good, but the whole point of the movie was to show the devastation of Iraq after Sadaam Hussein's reign. It starts out with this kid and his grandma walking in the middle of the desert along a road. They're looking for the kid's father, who is also the grandma's son. Eventually a vehicle comes, but it doesn't stop. Then a second one comes, and the grandmother stands in front of it, forcing it to stop. The driver reluctantly lets them come along (although he does it more happily after the grandma bribed him), and they well... got to a city. They looked in a jail where the father was supposed to be, but they couldn't find him. They then went to mass graves looking for him. The movie is extremely desolate. Every single scene is desolate. The landscapes are nothing but sand, the buildings are destroyed, and the people are dead, mourning, or somehow doing something that isn't... happy. There's just a few moments that are different. And in the end, the grandma can't take it anymore, and just dies. The kid is left alone. It's not really mentioned, but it's sort of assumed that he has absolutely no family left. Now that I think about it, this film was actually really good too... it wasn't made to be enjoyed, it was made to show what a tyrant did to the people. And it showed that amazingly well. Too bad the movie doesn't have a website...

Interestingly though, the whole movie was in Arabic and Kurdish. It had English under-titles though.

Also, rather to this subject, "Free Iran" was written on the statue outside of the Berlinale headquaters.



22.02.10

I got a little nauseous at school, then pukey at home.

23.02.10

I stayed home from school, and ended up drawing flowers.

24.02.10

I hung out with Tara and bought CLOTHES!

25.02.10

I went out with Tara again and BOUGHT MORE CLOTHES!

26.02.10

I bought more clothes! (Not really, I just sent my mommy a box with stuff in it)

27.02.10

I wrote a LOT for my German blog, and I also sort of went wandering around... I walked in on a fashion show in the middle of a mall. I took pictures, and I interviewed someone for my German blog (that means the interview is going there and not here ^^ (P.S. learn German)), and I got autograph from her for some people.