Voegeln

I don't know if this is normal when learning languages, but I mix up words alot. Maybe it's because words in German (seem) so similar to each other, I tend to screw up all the time, like when I mixed up Gesicht (face) with Geschichte (history), or when I confused Ziege (goat), with Zicke (bitch). Or, like today, when I meant to ask Marina "Moechtest du mehr Voegel?" (do you want more birds?) and said instead "Moechtest du mehr Voegeln?"

The addition of an extra 'n' produced a very awkward feeling me standing in the middle of the room going "What? What? What did I say?" as all the Germans I was with fell down and laughed themselves into a coma. Nobody considered it important to clarify for me what exactly I'd said. They just laughed until they turned blue in the face, until Vegemite said to Marina "I don't know, do you want more sex?" And then I turned super red, hid behind a pillow, and everybody laughed at me some more.

Note to German language learners: Vogel is bird. Voegel is birds. Voegeln is slang for sex. Learn from my mistakes.

Program yesterday was SWEET! I am so excited! We spent six hours learning about the cultural differences between US and German styles of communication, and how to effectively utilize them when trying to explain to ten year old German students who we're voting for. I can't wait to start!

Apparently Fabio has started saying "sweet", even sometimes when he speaks German, or so reports his roommate. The riding team as well as started saying it, as have a bunch of other students here that I hang out with. I give myself complete credit for bringing the word "sweet" to Germany.

Today I was bored, so I took my bike over the Swiss border, saw a cool-looking castle on a hill in the distance, and thought maybe I'd try to find it. Two hours, eight hills, and sneaking under 2 electric fences later, I found the castle, only to discover it wasn't a castle at all, but someone's house. Stupid Swiss people and their stupid castle houses. I must have biked at least 15 kilometers today, but I did make friends with a random group of swiss guys I met while creeping across a field I'd gotten into by going under the electric fence. They'd apparently had the same idea. Except it turns out they weren't swiss at all, but spanish. And I got hit on. Which just goes to show you, it doesn't matter where I go--I can be in Perkins, or I can be 3000 miles away, at the top of the hill underneath the castle-house in the middle of a field and surrounded by cow patties, and I will still get hit on by spanish guys. It's always the same.




P.S. New favorite song, hope you guys like rock: http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=pAC9y6kZucw