I miss German
I must admit that I haven't done a Rosetta Stone lesson or looked at any German since well before our trip to Vienna. UNTIL TODAY! Phew. I've been putting it off and the longer I do so, the harder it is to start again. What's the German word for procrastinate? Zogern (it is actually supposed to be an o with an umlaut, but I don't have a German keyboard, so I can't type it correctly, which totally bums me out). But today I jumped back in. Didn't do too badly, either.I miss hearing German spoken just walking down the street. Not that I had any idea what people were saying for the most part, what with the speed of the talk and the vocabulary that far exceeded my font of knowledge. Rosetta Stone is good for me. I know. But it has nothing on being in the thick of it.
And perhaps it sounds strange, but lately I have very much been missing what it felt like to be in a completely different place, among different people, a different culture, hearing a different language, having no idea what is going to happen, what is coming around the corner, and how I may fare in any upcoming interaction. The feeling I had when visiting Vienna. It was overwhelming, but exhilarating.
Feeling homesick for a place that isn't (yet) home? I delved into my photos from our trip today because I was missing it. It made me feel good to look at them....
Seeing these stirred feelings inside and put a smile on my face, kicked my butt into gear to start a big fat To Do List and got me to finally put the funny headset back on to learn more Deutsch.
Thing is, I'm excited to live in Vienna and I'm longing to be there. I'm not quite as excited about doing the work that is required to get us there. Or, at least I haven't been in the past few weeks. Feelings of motivation are beginning to stir again, though. Watch out!
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6 comments:
yay! what a great post. get ready! vienna is waiting for you :)
xx kate
www.transatlanticsketches.com
Amazing photos! Thanks for sharing your journey, I look forward to reading more about it!
XO
Lenore
Great to see Vienna through the eyes of someone who is really new to the city. Thanks for posting the pictures! A hopefully helpful note on German spelling: for a-,o-, u-Umlaut ae, oe, ue may be substituted, for the s that looks a bit like a b it is okay to substitute sz.
That's a VERY helpful note, Christina - thank you! Now I won't feel quite so bad trying to type in German without a proper keyboard (if/when I get to the point that I will actually be typing full sentences in German to actually communicate with people, that is!).
You can also install a german keyboard on your computer and switch easily between the two. I do that with swedish and german, just have to press caps+alt. Means that you have to know where the letters are, but maybe a good pratice for the move :) Guess one can print the german keyboard and have it ready when confused ;)
Love Emilie
There are usually keyboard shortcuts to enable you to type umlauts. i.e on my PC I can type an ä using Alt+0228. With my Mac I use a separate popup character program.
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