Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!

Feburary 22/Monday was my first day of my new German class in Erlangen. I moved myself up a level to take a C1 class. To be fair, I should have been in a C1 class all along. Last time I took a B2 class simply because it best fit my schedule. This time I wanted to take a class that would actually challenge me. Anyways, I made my way to Erlangen in the morning. My class is from 10:15-12:15, which means I have to catch the train at 9:16 to get there on time. The class itself was fine. I already knew three of the other 10 people in the class. Two of them had been at the Au Pair meetings and one was in my previous German class. The rest of them were mostly young mothers or young business professionals. Our teacher seems alright. She made us take a test so she could see if she thinks we could take and pass the C1 Goethe-Institut German Test. I might have mentioned this ranking system before, but I can't remember so I'll clarify again. There are essentially 6 levels of German proficiency here. They range from A1 to C2. It's a little more complicated than that, but basically A1 is beginner and C2 is fluent. Germans are certificate happy. You have to have a certificate to do many things here, from something as simple as teaching swim classes to children up to the complicated technical things associated with engineering. Anyways, in order for me to study at a German university (aka doing my course work in German), I need to have a certificate saying I'm at least C1 certified, though for many universities it's C2. Since I also intend on staying in Germany for a couple of years regardless of if I get my masters or work, I think it's a good idea to have this language certification. So, I'm taking this C1 class with the intention of taking the C1 test in June. On the first day of class, my teacher wanted to evaluate our skills to see if she thought we would be able to pass the test at that moment in time. The test itself was in two parts. The first part was multiple choice. This sounds easy, but I found it incredibly difficult. All the options were either, 1) different words with almost the same meaning (ex. carpet vs rug), or 2) different words but only off by one or two letters (ex. course vs coarse). The second section was a short essay. We spent most of the two hours working on these. HM picked me up from class with the kids in the car. Both kids were sick. One had scarlet fever and Two was still recovering from whatever he was sick with the week before. She walked to work and left me to drive home with the kids. As soon as we got home, I put Two down for his nap. One stayed up and we watched The Jungle Book together. The three of us played together in the afternoon once nap time/quiet time was over. HM got home and the four of us had dinner together. HD had left Sunday night for a work trip and Oma had left Saturday morning to go back to Berlin. After dinner I was relieved of my duties and had the evening free. I spent my free time relaxing and reading.

Tuesday was another busy day. I drove to Erlangen with HM and the kids. We dropped HM off at work, as she had an early morning meeting. I then took the kids to school. I came home and did my chores for the day. I showered, cooked lunch, and made my way into town. I needed to buy the books for my German class. It was cold and rainy, so I opted not to walk around town. I spent a couple of hours reading until I had to head back out to pick up HM and the kids. I worked until HD got back and I was relieved of my duties. I was laying in my bed reading while HD was getting the kids ready for bed. The kids took turns coming into my room and climbing onto my bed to hang out with me and be silly. It was adorable to see them seek me out to hang out with them. They aren't often like that and it warmed my heart.

Wednesday was, surprise!, busy. It was HM's 43rd birthday. I worked an hour in the morning. HD made a quick trip to the bakery to get some cake for breakfast. I had my German class again later that morning (it meets twice a week). We got the tests back and our teacher talked to us about where she thought we were. She told me that my writing was "pretty fluent, but not formal enough." She meant that I don't use fancy enough transitional phrases and such. She also said I have an "excellent base" in grammar and vocabulary and that my accent is "astonishing," because most Americans have horrendous German accents. It was a little disappointing for her to say my writing wasn't formal enough, but that's not anything I can't easily fix. I took the train back to Nürnberg and then stopped at the grocery store on the way back to my house. Once home, I spent a couple of hours doing chores. HD came home early to pack for his ski trip in Austria with his coworkers. HM came home with the kids around 5pm. She grabbed a few things, filled up the car, and then left with the kids for Berlin. I left the house as they were doing all of this. I went to each of them to say goodbye and for them to have fun. HP gave me crap about their suspicions for my upcoming weekend activities. HD asked me if I really liked to celebrate my birthday and HM asked me how many bottles of alcohol I had in my bag. Those goobers! I took the train to Ansbach and Adam met me at the train station. We went over to The 11, where Basti, Patricia, Eddie, and Eve were hanging out. We hung out for a few hours before we went back to Adam's place. I hadn't wanted to wake up in an empty house on my birthday. Adam graciously let me hang out with him.

Thursday was my 24th birthday! I made my way home relatively early, getting back to the house in the late morning. The day was kind of a blur. I skyped with my parents for an hour around lunchtime. I spent the rest of the afternoon on the couch watching some of my favorite televisions shows. I was happy to have some time to myself to relax, though spending so much time alone on my birthday was less than ideal. At 7pm I went for dinner with Adam, Eddie, Ina, Basti, Patricia, and Simon. Once we were finished eating, we went to Molly Malone's, the bar where Meg works. She was working and wanted us to stop by. We spent the next few hours there. Meg told Tony, her boss/the owner, that it was my birthday and he treated me to a free shot of some fancy whiskey. At 10:30pm, Adam, Basti, Eddie, and Patricia all left. They live in Ansbach and had to work the next morning so they couldn't be out too late. I stayed at Molly Malone's with Ina and Simon. We waited for Meg to get off work so we could head to Nano, a night club here. Meg was off around midnight. Simon decided to head home and us three girls continued on to Nano. A couple of our other friends were there, namely Polski. We spent a couple of hours dancing and socializing. We finally left around 3am and went back to Ina's place. We chatted for a bit before we crashed around 5am. Just like that, my birthday was over! To be honest, it didn't feel like my birthday at all. It just felt like any other day. Ina kept telling people that it was my birthday, and every time I was surprised to hear it. I guess I've reached that age where birthdays start to lose their shine? Who knows.

Ina, myself, and Meg on my birthday