SAT

I am taking the German SAT subject test in 10 days. My head is currently whirling with coordinating conjunctions, subjunctive moods, and auxiliary verbs... not to mention I'm trying to shove as much vocabulary in as I possibly can. So I apologize for my slight lack of communication... between June 5th and June 9th I'll get on that! And then I'll be gone again for our AFS END OF STAY camp. That means we're almost at the end. I believe the current count is 44 days. Holy guacamole!!

And we're off!

Tomorrow, at 10:10 am (promptly- we are in Germany, you know), I am leaving on a flight to France! Well, actually a flight to Frankfurt am Main, and then a flight to Toulouse, Frankreich. It's only a one-hour layover, though. And then I'll be spending four days in the lovely south of France! I am quite excited, and all my stuff is packed (I'm guessing I overpacked like usual) and I'm prepared to leave the house at 7 am (yippee...) to take various buses and UBahns to the airport.

I'm looking forward to:
-seeing a new country
-meeting new people
-eating French pastries and various other delicacies
-relaxing
-sleeping
-relaxing

I'm not so much looking forward to:
-cheese

(My uncle thinks I'm crazy that I'm going to France and I don't like cheese.)
There will be much Frenchness to come, I'm sure! Tschuss! Bonjour! Arrivaderci! Ciao! Goodbye!

Kiss Kiss

Our favorite American smooch...



and its German equivalent.

Gesundheit

It's a German word ("Healthiness"). You'd think the Germans would use it. I'm pretty sure I've heard about a total of ten Gesundheits the entire time I've been here. In America, if you sneeze in class, you'll often get about 10 "bless yous", including from the teacher. In Germany, I think sneezes are treated more like coughs- just kind of ignored. Although apparently (I have not experienced this for myself but have heard it from other exchange students) if you sneeze three times in a row you get to make a wish. Now I'm shuffling my feet on the carpet trying to get enough dust to rise that I'll sneeze three times.

EGH

DDR-Ville. Ost Deutschland. East Germany. Or, as our group of CBYXers have coined it, the East German Hood, or EGH. While I technically live in the former West Germany, I am probably only a few feet from the border. It's pretty hard to tell in the middle of Berlin at this point where the border was unless you look down and see a piece of Wall- a lot of East Berlin has been rebuilt and westernized. However, in what the Americans call the ghetto of Germany, there are groups of young guys who hang around in groups smoking Paul Malls and wearing what they think is gangsta gear. A typical outfit consists of the following: a white fake trucker hat, a plain white jacket, holey white jeans, shiny adidas sneakers, and a fanny pack. The Fanny Pack is essential. The Fanny Pack is where the kids of the EGH store their cigarette-rolling materials. They've got the filters, which they'll hold between their lips while they peel off a paper and pick a bit of tobacco out between their index finger and thumb. Then they'll spread it out all nice and evenly and lick the paper like an envelope to roll it all up into what they consider the coolest G thang ever. And the Americans sit by and watch, trying not to burst into (completely socially inappropriate) hysterical laughter. The G-wannabes swagger out of the S-Bahn, light their cigs with hot pink lighters (stored in the back pocket of their Fanny Packs) and toss their heads at each other in what they think is a gangster nod. And I nod back. Because they make my day every time I see them.