If you were in my English class...

Your homework for next Tuesday would be to take the 60 school/classroom related vocab words that I gave to you and we reviewed, and to write each one that you own on your choice of supplied, colorful post-its and stick it on the item.

I am partially afraid that I will get a post-it with the word 'teacher' smacked on my forehead next week as 'teacher' was one of the words, and I explained that the object is to use as many words as possible.


*I'm not an English teacher, nor do I play one on TV. Every Tuesday evening as a favor for a colleague I spend some time with his 10 year old to give her a bit of a basis for when she starts English class for real in school in a few months.

A quick trip to Luxembourg

I had a whirlwind trip to picturesque Luxembourg. It's a small place, so a short trip is ok. I found the people to be lovely and very helpful, although the weather was grey.

On the drive back to Germany I was listening to Luxembourgish radio. Read about the Luxembourgish language if you'd like. Or listen to this Luxembougish lesson to hear it.

I listen a lot to Dutch radio since I pick up Dutch station 3fm here in Germany, along with other Dutch stations, and I can follow along so-so. So I was curious to see how much Luxembourgish I could understand. I was following along with the weather, the traffic, and then they started an interview...

The interviewer was talking about the upcoming Easter weekend, and asking, "why do you always see rabbits bringing the Easter eggs, instead of the hens, who logically should be bringing the eggs?"

I thought hmm...that's very true, especially in Germany, I always see the rabbits transporting Easter eggs--they're like the DHL or Deutsche Post of Easter, hauling those decorated eggs everywhere with carts, trucks, wheelbarrows etc. You never seen a hen doing that.

At which point the interviewee started on an extensive answer...with lots of words in Luxembourgish that I could not understand in the slightest.

(Sigh.)

travels - Oh Canada!

March - This week a short trip down to Luxembourg, then to Austria for the long Easter weekend (Fri-Mon).

April - A work trip to Strasbourg.

late May - A work trip with a nested in trip home to Philly which looks a little like this:

Duesseldorf - Toronto - Philly
I was given a choice on the work flight of getting to Philly via Paris (too hectic), Frankfurt (schlepping myself on the ICE train down there, and then on a US carrier), London (way to hectic), or Toronto on Lufthansa.

Philly - Orlando
4 days for a conference there, then a weekend in Tampa with friends.

Tampa - midwest city of company J
a week at HQ

midwest city - Chicago - Duesseldorf
(return in early June)

Interesting exhibit in Germany

If you happen to be near one of these cities, D caught this exhibit when it was in our neck of the woods and recommends it. He mentioned that all explanatory text was pretty much in German, although there were some photos, so it could perhaps still be interesting even if your German is minimal.
http://www.zug-der-erinnerung.de/fahrplan.html