Meine zweite Woche ist schon fertig.

As of now, I have been in Germany for approximately two weeks, and everything is going fantastically. I have plenty to update here, but I will try to keep each post relatively short; therefore, I would like to only speak of my language progress over the last two weeks. The first week I was only called upon essentially as a simple translator. Three of my close friends were here from the States (one who is currently studying in Ireland) to visit and enjoy a week wandering in Munich with me. So, throughout the first week, I became the middle-man in situations such as ordering food, searching for something in a store, or asking for directions: all being relatively easy tasks. Not so often was it necessary for me to have a true conversation.

Upon arrival in Kinsau after my friends had departed, things have changed drastically. I have been staying with my host family from my 3 week high school exchange for the last week, and I have had the opportunity (due to my progressed language understanding) to get to know the family far better than last time. I made it clear that I only wished to speak German (which coincidentally wasn't much of a problem, because most of who I've been spending time with can speak little to no English), and thereafter my German has progressed rapidly. Even now I am having to edit my grammar continuously due to mix-ups with the two languages.

The last two evenings have been "Feierabende" due to two consecutive birthdays within the family and with them, I have seen the most progression. 10-15 Germans sitting at a table, having multiple conversations, addressing me only in German, most using heavy Bavarian dialect. As I more often heard the Bavarian, I became further accustomed to the slight changes in pronunciation within familiar words and became better at understanding what I already knew as German. I also started to notice a sort of language-exhaustion which  I had only heard of from Kelley when she was abroad. At the beginning of the evening I could understand almost everything, then at a certain point, my brain would start to block out any sort of language. I would even have difficulty forming an English sentence when prompted to do so or producing English equivalents for words I had been asked about. Here lies another reason for wanting to keep these posts brief; when I start typing in English,  my German sentence structure dominates. After a bit though, I become used to using English again, but if interrupted in German, I have trouble making a quick switch back.

The last of my experiences I would like to discuss is perhaps the most interesting. The last two nights I have had dreams in which I am speaking German. My dreams though have been quite different than those described to me by Kelley, which she began to experience about two months into her trip. She describes dreams in which everyone "there" is speaking German, even the people she knows cannot speak a lick of German. I have never experienced such a dream. The last two dreams I've had, a type which I've experienced before, make a clear distinction between those that understand German and those that don't. Therefore, about half of the dream is in German and half in English. The strangest part to these dreams though is that my German friends can, like in reality, can speak much better German than I, and even in my dreams, I sometimes did not understand what they were saying. I find this odd, because obviously a dream is constructed by my own though, so how then do I not understand the German that my own mind is producing? I think the only fitting answer is that my mind has constructed a category for the German that I do not understand, and is attempting to reproduce the sound of "foreign" German as if it were a real situation. Whatever the case may be, I think the status of my language proficiency is quite clear, especially upon inspection of my dreams.

I'm sorry for any language-use that may have sounded quite odd ; I must return to German-mode though, so for now...

Servus und bis später.