I'm a Hamburger!

So here it is: the inaugural post of my very own blog. Some of you will probably be saying to yourselves, didn't she tell me once how annoying blogs were, how they were a bit too self-important for her tastes? Well, yes. I do kinda feel like there is an element of thinking, 'I am really fascinating and I'm sure other people will find my minutae fascinating as well.' In this particular case, I submit myself to you to enjoy the spectacle of me adapting to a foreign place. Some things will undoubtedly seem funnier to me writing them than you reading them. But since many people have already responded to my emails saying that I had brought them to tears of laughter, I thought I'd jump on the blog wagon. N.B.: I don't love the name of the blog, and invite you to submit your proposals. The weiner will receive a free pair of lederhosen and a complimentary copy of Nena's new album.

I'll go back shortly and recap how I got to this point, but for now I'll pick up where I am.

On Monday, I started my deutsch class - everyone is from a different country:

Adil, the anaethesiologist from Morocco
Mohammed, the student from Tunisia
Nibal, the student from Lebanon
Justyna, the make-up artist from Poland
Annick, the psychologist from France
Vito, the waiter from Italy
Antonetta, the student from Albania
Elena, the actor and acting teacher from Canada
Xenia, the shipping broker from Russia
Chien-Ju, the shipping broker from Taiwan
Jose Luis and Belen, aspiring golf course designers from Spain

The teacher is a bit of an oddball. He's constantly making puns in some combination of German, English, whatever language suits him, like:

Ja? Das ist der Alpha... der Alpha... der Alphabet, nein? Nicht, ehhh, nicht ein Alfa Romeo, eh Vito? Nicht alpha male, aber, der... uhhh... der Alphabet. Na?

Lots of the class is spent like this. It's entertaining some of the time, other times, I just wish he'd spit it out and move on. Most of the time, everyone in the class is laughing at his puns and whatnot, but usually around noon, people seem to tire of it. They just start answering his questions ja or nein, regardless of the truth.

Today, since we are learning how to say the letters in deutsch, we played a game of Bingo. Because I am a show-off and a smarty-pants, I often get chosen to do things like write on the board and such. (I've always been like this, rushing to finish before anyone else and showing off how vastly superior my intelligence is when it comes to completing rote tasks. The problem is that because I think I am such hot shit and usually go too fast, I often make sloppy mistakes. Nothing worse than trying to show off superior rote tasks and forgetting a comma.) So today, I was chosen to be the Bingo Frau, probably in deutsch that is written Bingofrau. So the teacher says, 'Christina, du bist die Bingofrau.' (lots of laughter from the class) 'So (pronounced in deutsch "zo"), so Bingofrau, kommst hier bitte.' Basically, my job was to read aloud the various letters of the alphabet, such as 'Y' (upsilon), 'J' (yot), 'G' (gay), and the real stinker 'V' (fow). It was a real riot and I managed to walk away with a chocolate bar as a prize. Go Bingofrau, go Bingofrau!

Today, the sun finally peeked through, after several day of rain. Actually, there was a little sun yesterday evening and I caught this rainbow from our window. Is it corny to read things into rainbows???