Awkward situations: Let's 'du' it.

Like many languages other than English, German makes a distinction between a formal 'you', or Sie relationship with someone and an informal 'you', or du relationship, depending on who you're talking to, how long you've know them, their age, position, etc.

One of the jokes students know and love about how English doesn't distinguish this is the phrase, "you can say you to me." I believe it was one of the German foreign ministers who said that to Margaret Thatcher, which, obviously, is ridiculous. Even more so than JFK's famous, "I am a jelly donut".

"You can say you to me." Um, ok...

Now, in German, where there is this du and Sie relationship, you can always offer the du or the Sie, as you wish,  and as long as it's appropriate. They call it to 'duzen' and 'siezen' one another.

If you translate it to English and you want to be friendly, aka du, you end up saying, "you can do me. Please, I insist. Do me." Or, "Should we do each other?", which in English might be misunderstood as a different friendly offer, which may have happened to some of us...accidentally...before we realized the mistake.

"Should we do each other?"
"Excuse me?"

I mean when I first meet people I'm friendly, but not that friendly...unless it's Henry Cavill. Then I might make an exception.

Awkward Situations: Because sometimes...you just have to.

I was riding the bus home from work the other day and was sitting in a four seat area. The man across from me was on the phone and for about five minutes he was talking very excitedly about something. He kept saying, perfect, awesome, thanks, wonderful, great, great, great, thank you. Though, it was in German, so it was more like, perfekt, super, danke, wunderbar, super, toll, toll, toll, super, danke, danke, danke.

Obviously, it was something good. On his last "Danke", he hung up the phone. He snorts loudly like a pig, whinnies like a horse, then fist pumps...twice, "Ja! Ja!"

What my face probably looked like.

I...for a second I thought, did he just snort like a pig and whinny like a horse? I almost lost it. I looked at the girl sitting next to him who was looking away and smiling. She'd heard it too. For the rest of the trip I had to bury my face in my scarf not to laugh out loud, and I don't mean the internet, lol, I mean, literally, laugh out loud.





I hope there comes a day when we're all so excited we snort and whinny and fist pump at the same time.

Things my students say: Hairy situations

A lesson in hopes and dreams.

Me: What is a hope or dream that you have.
Student 1: To travel the world.
Student 2: To have a collection of traditional clothing from around the world.
Student 3: To wax my father in-law's back. It's really hairy.
Me: .......Ok. That's a new one.
Student 3: Trust me, if you saw it, you'd know what I mean. Just give me some hot wax. *makes a motion like she's pulling hair off.

I guess we all have those little things that would make us happy.

Things my student say: Yee. Haw.

Student: I'm sorry, but can I ask you something?
Me: Sure.
Student: Have you ever ridden a bull?
Me: Uh, no. Why?
Student: Well you look like the kind of girl who would ride a bull.
Me: Uh, well, ummmmm, well, thank-, uh, I don't know how to respond to that. Why do you say that?
Student: I thought about it yesterday when you were so passionately talking about meat. I thought, that's the kind of girl that would ride a bull.
Me: Uh,...well, I'm from Texas. I guess we get excited about meat?

I mean, do I want to look like a girl who rides a bull??

Awkward Situations: That's a wrap!

I don't know if you've ever seen Fried Green Tomatoes, but this next story reminds me of a scene from it. If you haven't seen it, it's an excellent movie. Go rent it right now.

In the movie there's a scene where Evelyn, played by the amazing Kathy Bates, is going through a mid-life crisis and trying to spark up her sex life with her husband. She had always imagined herself wrapped in saran wrap, so one day she comes to the door fully wrapped to greet her husband. One of my first thoughts was, that's hilarious, who would actually do that? My second thought was, she has to be sweating.

Then I read somewhere that people wrap themselves in saran wrap before working out to try and sweat a little more. I thought, that's funny and kind of gross at the same time. It can't be healthy.  And then I can't even imagine trying to get it off after the workout. Who would do that?

A lady at my gym would. That's who. I'm going to be a little judgy on this one.

So there is this lady who comes to the gym and we usually go about the same time. Every time, before she puts on her workout clothes, she wraps herself in massive amounts of saran wrap. Then puts on spandex over that, and then heavy sweats over that. It can't be comfortable. Then she waddles out to the gym floor with the sound of crinkly saran wrap echoing around her. Squeak squish, squeak squish.

Well, this one time I was at the grocery store and who did I see? The saran wrap lady. And what was she buying? Saran wrap! She had boxes of it. Stocking up I could only imagine. Sure enough, about a week later I ran into her at the gym and she was wrapping herself as usual with her fresh supply.

Then, several months went by and I didn't see her. Frankly, I had forgotten about her until a few days ago when there she was! Back in the locker room wrapping herself up.

I couldn't help but smile. It was like having an old friend back. Maybe that makes me the weird one, but I couldn't help but feel relieved. So many things in my life are changing, but at least this one is wrapped up tight. Literally.

Awkward Situations: There's something behind you

I was at the gym the other day, in the lady's locker room, minding my own business while changing after working out. I was standing facing the lockers with my top off. I sensed someone standing behind me. Trying to be the modest American I am, I didn't turn around, I kept changing. I noticed the woman continuing to stand behind me, just staring. It was a little uncomfortable, so also being the passive aggressive person I am, I sort of turned my head back to glance at her and give her a, 'hey, what are you staring at', look. She goes. "hi". I kind of mumbled something and turned back around to continue dressing.

Suddenly and loudly she goes, "Hey"! I turned all the way around. She looked at me and goes, "Oh. Sorry. I thought you were my neighbor who complains all the time." Then she walked away.

Not going to lie. I kind of felt used.

I love that she assumed if I was her angry neighbor that standing behind me and watching me dress was the way to go about having a conversation.

We totally had this VHS

Things my students say: Honey, I'm home!

The chapter we focused on today was about accidents. They say a majority of the accidents happen in the home, so using vocabulary we learned, we were discussing what kind of accidents can happen in which rooms. My students all agreed that the kitchen and the bathroom were the most dangerous.

Again this dialogue occurred between a younger and an older student.

Me: OK, which is the safest room?
Older Student: The bedroom is the safest.
Younger Student: Not in my house! *wink wink nudge nudge
Older Student: What? Oh! (smiles with looks of remembrance) To be young again.
Younger Student: You're still young enough.
Older Student: Yes. Yes, I am.......... I look forward to going home after work. Are we almost finished?

 At least one of us from that class had a good evening.

Things my students say: Let's get dirrty

I have one class with a group of four; two students relatively a bit older, two younger. I asked them how their weekend was. One student, a man, maybe late 40s or early 50s responded.

Older student: It was short and dirty.
Younger student: *eyebrows raised. Uh, what do you mean dirty?
Older student: Well, my wife and I walked through muddy fields.
Younger student: Oh, so you mean dirty in the negative, not positive.
Older student: How can dirty be positive?
Younger student: *big smile on his face.



Obviously some students in the class have a broader knowledge of slang than others.

Awkward Situations: Me and polar bears

About a year and a half ago, or maybe even longer, my friend Jo and I went out dancing. She and I were shaking it on the dance floor when we saw a group of dudes dancing near us. Then they came closer and closer  and then inevitably, one of the guys came up beside me.

He asks: How much does a polar bear weigh?

Because he was German, I automatically assumed he actually wanted to know. I've never openly been hit on by a German.

I had no idea what a polar bear would weigh. Why would I know that?  So, I looked at my friend Jo.

Me: He wants to know how much a polar bear weighs. Random.
Jo: *shrugs. I don't know about 240, 250?
I looked at the guy: Uh, 240, 250?
The guy kind of paused: Uh, no. Enough to break the ice. My name's Christian.

Then he reached out to shake my hand. Honestly, I was like, that doesn't make sense. What do you mean? To break the ice? Can they really be that heavy? I guess the ice is thinning...OH. OH I GET IT.

I'm a keeper.

In my defense, who uses pick up lines for real?

Travel Stop: Hungary Part 2; Szentendre, Visegrad, Esztergom, Slovakia

Why thank you! Our first stop was a city called Szentendre, or St Andrew. When the Tursks invaded Hungary, one of the things they brought with them was paprika. Now, paprika is a major part of Hungarian dishes and you can find it everywhere. They hang it on the walls to dry.

 Szentendre is an artisans town, and so all along the street you can find shops with traditional Hungarian art and artifacts. There are also a lot of museums. We saw the one museum called Mikroart Museum. It's a museum with art you can really only see though a high powered lens. I mean, they create images on the end of a human piece of hair. It's that tiny and it's AWESOME.

Example of Micro art. That's the eye of a needle!

Here are examples of  typical small streets in the city. The streets can keep you cool in the summer and the narrowness can protect you when an enemy comes to attack.

The city has three parts to it. A Serbian part, a Greek part, and a Turkish part. All three used to reside here in their separate quarters. Below you can see part of the Serbian area. It generally has higher roofs. The shops are on the bottom level and the owners lived on the first floor, much like you see today. They didn't have cellars, instead they had attics, which is why the roofs are higher.

Most Serbians were Orthodox, and here is an example of an Orthodox Church. There are seven churches total in Szentendre, and four of them are Orthodox.

This is a picture of the Greek Street in Szentendre, and fittingly, it's called Greek Street. The Greeks handled most of the wine in the area so this street leads down to the Danube river.

Picture of part of the Serbian quarter.

Here is another picture of the square. You can see a column in the middle. That column commemorates people who died from the plague in the middle of the 17th C. Because it's an Orthodox stature there are no figures, just that of a cross.

Here is a view of the Danube and in the distance you can see an island. It's 31km long (19.2iles). It's known for strawberries because there are many many strawberry fields on it. At the end of May, they have big festivals there, with traditional Hungarian clothing, Strawberry wine, cake, and music.

Here we have the first church of the city, the St Andrew church. It was built in the 11th C and because it was in the oldest part of the city, it is surrounded by a wall. It is a Catholic church.

The red church in the back is the Belgrade church, named after the capital of Serbia. It is an Orthodox church. In the 18th C about 8000 Greek and Serbian families lived in Szentendre, but after the First World War they immigrated back to their countries. Only about 60 families remained. As I mentioned earlier, there are four Orthodox churches here, but only tho remain open for the families that remain.






I showed you a little of the Serbian and Greek parts, and here is a picture of the Turkish part. If you couldn't tell...

At the end of Turk Street you find the St Peter's church.

Let me tell you how much I love this photo. This is our tour guide explaining the bust in the background. It is the bust of a famous Hungarian author who was born in 1822. Did I catch his name? No, because it was a bit hard with these dudes in the car revving their engine loudly.

Here we have the Marzipan museum. It's like Madame Toussaud's, except instead of wax they use marzipan. They life sized figures like Michael Jackson and also fairy tale figures and buildings.

Main street in Szentendre.

After Szentendre we moved onto a town called Visegrad. It was a Kingdom in the middle ages and Louis the Great was born here. He was King of Hungary and Croatia and Poland in the 14th C.

Before we got to Visegrad we passed through what is know as a fisherman's village. The houses are usually long and small with one window in the front and one in the back. The reason is originally they had to pay tax on the number of windows facing the main street, so that's why there's only one in the front. The kitchen, the warmest place, is located in the middle.

Then we arrived at the watch tower and there was a band to greet us! Actually, not really. They were there for another group. They greeted them in the parking lot and marched them down to the watchtower. 

All those iPads.

At the bottom you can see Solomon's watchtower. Not the King Solomon from the bible though. This Solomon was from the 11th C.  The watchtower you see now was built in the 15th C. Count Dracula was imprisoned here for 12years by King Matthias. You can also see the old defense walls. Ships would stop here passing along the Danube to pay toll.

I showed you one island famous for strawberries, this one in the distance was famous for raspberries.

Here below is the restaurant where we ate. You could see a view of the Visegrad Castle from the dinig area. Visegrad means, high castle. It's about 350m above sea level.

Visegrad Castle

In the area is what is called the Danube Bend, The river bends twice and creates a double 's'. The weather wasn't so great so you can't really see, but here is a picture of where the Danube starts to bend.

Our last stop was a city called Esztergom. During the Roman times Marcus Aurelius and his legions were stationed here while fighting the barbarian hordes. He wrote his Meditations here as well. After the Romans the Barbarians lived here, the Huns, Ostrogoths, then the Franks in the 7th C. The ancient Hungarians conquered it in the late 9th C, 896 AD. It was the first capital of Hungary.

Here is a picture of the cathedral in Esztergom. It is the largest in Hungary and was built in the Neoclassical style 1822-1856. About 65% of Hungarians are Catholic. The statue in front is a statue of Mary wearing a crown and holding a scepter.  

The reason that Mary is wearing a crown and holding a scepter is the St Stephan, the first King of Hungary, was born here. He had one son, but hos son was killed in a hunting accident. He had no other heirs so he decided to offer the Hungarian crown to Mary.

Statue of Mary

This is the organ in the church. It is the 2nd largest organ in the Europe. It has 9000 different pipes. The biggest organ is in a church in Passau, Germany. That organ has 13,000 pipes. Ther eare plan to enlarge this organ here in Hungary to 11,000 pipes, keeping it the second largest in Europe.

The famous musician and composer Franz Liszt came here and composed a mass for inauguration in 1856. Also Pope John Paul came here in 1995 and conducted services.

The painting in the back is one of the largest paintings in the world. You can't really see it here, but it is massive. It's about 13 meters wide and 7 meters high. (42 ft wide, 22 ft high). It was painted by an artist named Grigoletti and is actually an enlargement of a Titian.

Here you can see what's behind the church. Across the river is Slovakia.

We crossed the bridge into Slovakia. Now we are in Slovakia looking at the Cathedral from the back.

That was the end of our day trip. The drive back was not exciting and it was raining. But I'm definitely happy to have gone on this trip to see more than just Budapest.