First week of April, Last week of Language Course

  Yes, so as the title explains, this week was the last week of my intensive German course. We had a final exam, which if we pass means that we earn official certification of a level of German language. I'm hoping for C1 certification, but we may only have had the option with the exam we took to get as high as B2 certified.
 In any case, it means that for the actual semester, I'm going to be taking 2 more language courses at the Sprach Zentrum (Language center) for upper level German speakers. One class is about Bademwurttemburg- the state I live in, and the other is about German Literature and Culture.
 
 I also received good news from professors at the university, whom I had emailed about taking their classes. So, my classes at the actual university campus will be: Architekturgeschichte (Architecture History) and Olympia- Mythos, Politik, Kultur (Olympia- Myth, Politics, Culture)
 
Anyway, the exam went fairly well. My teacher said that I am one of 3 students in the class who are Konjunktiv II experts. AKA, there was a grammar section on the exam, 65 points total, 15 of which were over konjunktiv II, and apparently the 3 of us got all the points, which were earned by writing out all of the 9 functions of Konj II and examples for each case.
The exam also consisted of a free-writing portion - we had to write about the future, which was a main theme for our class anyway, so easy provided there weren't too many mistakes I made and didn't catch.  Then there was a listening portion. I predict I got about 75% on that, because lets be honest, even in English I probably only hear about 90% of what people tell me. (Tyler will tell you it's more like 25% because I don't listen).   .. Annnnd a reading comprehension exercise. So boring. I hate them in English, and I don't like them any more in German. I know I didn't do perfectly, but I feel like I probably got 85% or so.
 
Ok, so now that I've talked my exam to death, the summary is: I think I passed. I hope I got an 80% overall because that is the ONLY grade for the course, and PU sucks, meaning that there is no curve or grade adjusting. If I got a 75%, then PU counts that as a C.
 
I forgot to mention that our exam was about 3 1/2 hours long. A vast majority of us were ready to go out for a drink afterwards. We could. So we did. And our awesome hippie teacher met up with us for a little while and even made us buy her drink. I'm sure the waiter wasn't too thrilled when we handed him a crazy amount of 20 and 50 cent coins to split the cost between us, but money is money.
 
 
On Friday night, one of the German guys (who is the buddy to my Australian friends) hosted a party at his apartment. So, Helly and I went together. I always have a good time when I meet up with Helly, she is so sweet and I get to practice speaking German, and she gets to talk in English.
 

 

That's me, helly and Ty Ron- the guy who was hosting the party. He spent a semester or a year studying in Australia and as a result his English is really good. He has kind of a funny accent in English, where if you didn't know he was German you might guess he was from somewhere closer to England.

 
Anyway, I made it back to my dorm around 2:30am and at 1pm the next day, I met up with my Spanish friend Edu, and a couple of his friends, and we all went to the Saturday flea market downtown (in the stadtmitte). It was pretty cool, but if I were really to buy anything, there's some serious haggling to be done. For instance, I asked someone with a used books stand how much their copy of Harry Potter und der Orden des Pheoniz cost, and he replied (translated from German) "20 Euro? Well it's normally 30 Euro but I'll give it to you half off, so 15." 15 Euro for a used copy??? I can buy it new for cheaper I think! So I politely said no and walked away.
But, there was a lot of cool stuff there, and I am likely to go back in a few weeks.
 

 
Later in the evening, I planned to go to a party at the student bar at my "wohnheim" (living home? I don't know what to call it in English, but it's like a dorm, except that there are actually a lot of smaller buildings, like 8 or so that make up my whole wohnheim) at 9pm, but then Edu and his friends said they were cooking dinner around 9:30 and asked if I wanted to come. So of course I said yes.
We had maul-taschen, a typical German ravioli type pasta. Most people eat them stuffed with spinach and meat, but just for me, they bought veggie ones. It was so nice of them!
Oh and I brought a jar of applesauce, because I feel bad going to dinner at someone's house and eating their food without buying some of the groceries or helping them cook. And applesauce was the only unopened food item I had besides red cabbage.
 We actually started dinner just before 10pm, which was the same time that the Barcelona Fussball game started, so for the first time ever, I watched about half of a real soccer game. It wasn't that bad.
 At 11, I decided to head over to the party at "Sansibar," the student bar. It was so cool because it was super crowded with nearly all international students. I met up with some Finish friends, one of which hilariously drunk and told me multiple times that I am the best American he has ever met, and that he always thought that Americans are uneducated and not very friendly, but that I am awesome.
It might be the best compliment I've heard.
 
However, at midnight, a security office/ police man, I don't know which, showed up to the bar and told them they were in some violation of noise regulations- even though the law in the area is not supposed to go into effect until 1am. So I don't know what the deal was, but basically for the whole extra half hour we stayed and hung out, the cop was still there and appeared to be writing a ticket or warning of some sort to the bar.
 
(taking a picture of 4 people is difficult)
 
I also found out when I got back to my dorm that the front door lock is broken. I don't know what happened, but the keys no longer open the door. There was a note saying "please don't shut the door." because we would all be locked out, but guess what, it was just my luck that someone shut the door. Thank goodness my neighbor was home, because I had to call her room and ask her to let me in.
 
Anyway, I now have no classes until Wednesday, and I am glad for a couple of free, relaxing days.
 
Also, I forgot that on Friday morning, I finally got the package my parents sent me. It took like 3 solid weeks for it to get here, but the homemade cookies were still good!

 

 

Matt also had to make sure I have a picture of David Hasselhoff, because you know, it is Germany afterall.
                                   
 
My favorites: Ruffles cheddar chips, fruit strips, homemade chocolate chip cookies, candy and gum! Oh and a nutella to go pack, and my camera charger!