10 Reasons why I Love my German Class.

Tags

classmates, culture, education, exams, food, friends, German, German food, Hamburg, Joy, laughter, Learning, life, modern languages, tea

Some of you may have heard me talk about my German class and how I love it. You probably didn’t understand why. I understand that, but I’m pretty sure I can change your mind:

1. 3 years in a small class with two or three others doesn’t make it feel like students and teachers. It’s so relaxed and we still learn. Always a bonus!

2. Our teacher is so stressed from all the stressful first and second years that he dozes off sometimes. A lot of the time. However, he tries to be alert whenever we talk to him but It is so funny! You get used to it after a while and just think of it as another little part of our German class.

4. We blether about anything and everything and sometimes even get a wee History lesson. Pretty sure he’d love to teach History. We talk about all the countries we’ve been too and tell each other how wonderful they are.

5. He can speak words in every flipping language. Yes, Danish, Dutch, Italian, Norwegian, Latin, French, German and probably more. He is fluent in French, German and Danish which means we get the benefits of learning some words in other languages too!

6. Our teacher brings us tea. Yes! We are working away ( aside from the blether, we actually do work really hard!) and he’ll pop off and come back with a tray of tea. ‘Becca and Lisa, you like milky tea right? Yarima, no milk and here’s some sugar.’ Pretty much makes my day because I love tea.

7. Takes us abroad on school trips. Well, Hamburg had to have a mention here. My class had been talking about a cultural trip to German since third year and we went and it was brilliant!

8. Always helps us whenever we need it. Aside from the blethering, laughing and drinking tea we work hard! He always asks ‘is there any way in particular you would like me to help you?’ ‘I’ll mark this for you right away.’ I know all teachers are meant to do that but it’s when it’s the balance of both that the atmosphere is so much more enjoyable.

9. We all get on so well. My two other classmates and I help each other and are generally good friends. It’s understandable in a big class that people don’t get on but if there are so few and we didn’t get along then that would be a tad awkward. So, I’m just thankful for that. Plus, we always bring each other food. It’s amazing!

10. German food days. Enough said.

I have mentioned many funny aspects of our class but just a little note to say that we do work;) considering Yarima and I are predicted grade A’s and Becca grade B I’m pretty sure that means we’re learning!;)

Home Bound, Christmas Shopping and Velocity.

Tags

Christmas, Christmas Shopping, cinema, coffee shops, coffee tasting, Festive, friends, German class, Germany, Hamburg, Hamburg Culture, home bound, journey, life, Little Italy for lunch, Lord of the rings, love, School Trip, tapas, The Hobbit, Train Journey, travelling

You’ll be glad to know that I have actually returned from Hamburg. I forgot to blog and tell you I’m home… purely because on Monday I only got home at about 11.30pm. Then, going straight to school the next day and getting back into the routine of things led to me forgetting to blog. Sorry! Nothing exciting really happened on the journey home except that on the train from Edinburgh, we went in pairs and got a day each to write about and my friend Cara was writing in invernesion. Keeping in mind this was going to one of the head teachers, for the website. She also write inside jokes that we had made up on our trip. It was just so funny! I’m not sure that can go on the website… So I arrived home safe and sound, on Monday… 

… now its Saturday and I have got all my Christmas shopping sorted. I met another one of my friends and we went for lunch at Little Italy for some tapas. It was just the best!! I definitely recommend it 😉 Now we’re sitting a coffee shop with tea and loads of work to do. Now… something very very strange happened. Peta tried coffee. Not just ‘normal’ coffee but Espresso coffee. Who would of thought? I was expecting the “This is revolting.” line but in fact that was me after I tried it. In fact, Peta thought it wasn’t that bad and could actually see her self drinking it occasionally.  Saying that, nothing beats tea! So we’re back to having our table filled with tea pots.

I am also super excited for tomorrow because we’re going to see the Hobbit. I probably blogged ages and ages and ages ago about having a Lord Of The Rings day. That was when we spend the whole day from 10am until 10pm watching every Lord Of The Rings including the extended editions. It was fab! Then when the first Hobbit came out, we got into that to. I can’t wait! 😀 

 

Germany Day 3: Chocolate Factory, Christmas Parades and Markets.

Tags

Chocolate Factory, Christmas, Christmas Markets, Christmas Parade, City, clothes, culture, education, fashion, friends, Germany, Hamburg, life, Markets, photography, school, shopping, tourist

Today was the day that I was looking most forward to. 

I love chocolate. I had never been to a chocolate factory so this was exciting! We went there for 09.15 and I tasted a huge coco bean and then another bean when it was a bit further it process. The first huge coco bean was cut in half and it kind of looked like mushroom or onion inside a shell. It was horrible. It had the texture of a nut and didn’t taste nice. It tasted bitter. Then, there were little coco beans which were a bit further in the process but they still tasted horrible. They tasted like REALLY REALLY dark chocolate and I think it tasted worse than the first one. Then we crushed the coco beans and made them into sort of flakes. A machine made the chocolate thinner but still had bumps in it. Then, the last stage made it smooth and delicious. We also decorated our own chocolate bar and then put in in the fridge (Picture below). There was a shop and I bought some little chocolates for my friends to try too 🙂 

Then, we explored the area a bit and found a building that is made to look like a ship (super cool!) We also found the parade and then went to the Art Gallery. Next to the art gallery people were protesting and there were police and loads of people but I’m not sure what they were protesting about. We made our way back to the markets where we had a look around and I also went to buy some Christmas leggings. I love them! Dinner was at 6.30pm in the hotel and then we played card games and laughed a lot and I almost fell asleep so I think that is a sign that I should go to bed! 😀 

(last three are from google because my phone wouldn’t email them.) 

p.s this was outside this morning 🙂 

Germany Day 1 – Travelling Adventures.

Tags

adventure, Airport, City, culture, friends, Germany, Hamburg, hotel, life, school, town, transport, traveling

Yesterday we arrived in our hotel at around 12.30 (hence why this blog post is a day late) 
Yesterday was… eventful. To say the least. It all began at 10pm on Wednesday night. One of the teachers phoned to inform us that our train has been cancelled. So instead, one of the head teachers drove us down to Edinburgh in the terrible weather. Seriously, I couldn’t even open the boot of the car without being blown away. It was horrendous! With winds up to 140mph, we were all, even by this point, worrying whether our flight would actually set off. Luckily, it was only 7 minuets delayed. We all thought that everything was going to plan, when the pilot spoke to us and said that Hamburg airport was closed… he said that Copenhagen airport was closed and the other nearest to Hamburg was Berlin. Berlin isn’t close. It is 4 hours from Hamburg. We were SO excited. Who would pass up going to 2 cities for the price of one? They organised a bus to drive us into Hamburg so we did get to see some of the city, even if it was dark. To add to this, the driver didn’t even take us into to town, he took us to the airport. The airport was pretty cool but it was dead. Apart from a few others, we were pretty much the only ones on the train when two men and a woman came on. One of the guys had just been punched in the face by a black guy because the other guy was being racist and accusing him of taking drugs. We were right behind them at this point which was kind of scary. They were drunk and brave woman was keeping them apart. She claimed to know the black guy. We moved seats and the police came but they had already gone. To top it off, we got lost in Hamburg and it started to snow and then hail. Eventually, we found our hotel and went straight to bed.
It is Friday now and I woke up at 6.30am which means I had 5 hours sleep. I don’t even feel tired. We have a buffet breakfast in half an hour which, to be honest, I am looking so forward to 😀

 

Something to look Forward to…

Tags

Boat cruise, Chocolate Museum, Christmas, Christmas Markets, education, food, friend, German, Germany, Hamburg, Holiday, laughter, life, love, Modern Studies, Museums, pizza, school, shopping, Sightseeing, snow, Tourists, transport, travel, travelling, weather, winter, work

It is 9.30pm. I have just finished doing some preparation for a Modern Studies NAB tomorrow. I had already done it but I have to add some more information in.. because.. well.. I didn’t really answer the question. This topic only took one week. For the last topic I passed my NAB with no problems but I misunderstood this question. Anyway, I had been trying to google examples of violent and non-violent action by pressure groups probably for the last 3 hours. Even now, I don’t have a clue if I have been doing it right. My solution is just to go and ask my teacher in the morning. As you can probably imagine, I am now so tired and have wanted to go to sleep for the last hour. I am so tired. 

First though, I had to read my friend’s blog post. She wrote about how she was excited to have a domino’s pizza waiting for her when she returned home after a busy day in Perth for work. Which is quit a long drive for one day, in the snow. Yes! side note, it snowed this morning. How excited I was!! Shouting around the house just to make sure everybody knew that Inverness looked like a winter wonderland. As well as that, I walked into registration this morning shouting to my regi teacher while my immensely heavy bag was thrown onto the table (she is quite used to her tea being spilled and paper work flying everywhere by now because of my heavy bag, it does make her laugh so its all good) shouting “Mrs Rathbone, its snowing!! Its snowing!!” Yep. I did that.

To the point of this blog post, just now as I sit on the floor worrying that i have spent 3 hours researching the wrong things and worrying that I haven’t even started memorizing what I need to know but only shrunk it down to bullet points and high- lighting that I am going to Hamburg in a couple of weeks. Now, THAT is something to look forward to. Especially since we have an itinerary that we are most likely going a head with.. its is so exciting. I have never been to Hamburg before. The places that I am most excited for are, sightseeing in central Hamburg, Chocolate museum, Christmas parade, Christmas markets, mini wonderland and of course shopping. There are other things such as a boat cruise, a couple of more museums etc but those are the ones that I am most looking forward to. I can not wait! 

In the mean time, I pray I pass this NAB! haha… 
Goodnight.