For breakfast this morning, I had jam and bread again but added yogurt that I had found - they had a cherry yogurt with chunks of the actual fruit mixed in, much like what I used to have in France. I also discovered they had Choco Flakes in the cereal section, which I was not at all expecting. I hadn’t seen Choco Flakes since Romania, so that was pretty cool.
In Search today, we discussed Martin Luther and his impact on Germany. I hadn’t known he was responsible for the standardization of written German, which was transmitted via the spread of the Bibles he translated into German. He had disagreed with the Church’s ways (especially indulgences) and believed that the Word of God was most important, and that Christians should be able to commune directly with God instead of having to go through the Church. His solution was to translate the Bible into German so every literate citizen could read (or learn to read) the Word of God instead of relying on the Latin-speaking priests. So Luther’s specific dialect of German became the written version which is still used today.
In Search today, we discussed Martin Luther and his impact on Germany. I hadn’t known he was responsible for the standardization of written German, which was transmitted via the spread of the Bibles he translated into German. He had disagreed with the Church’s ways (especially indulgences) and believed that the Word of God was most important, and that Christians should be able to commune directly with God instead of having to go through the Church. His solution was to translate the Bible into German so every literate citizen could read (or learn to read) the Word of God instead of relying on the Latin-speaking priests. So Luther’s specific dialect of German became the written version which is still used today.
In our German culture class, we focused mainly on vocabulary and the different resources available to learn German if we wanted to.
After lunch, we had a lecture and workshop called “Intercultural Communication” led by Claudia Heß from the University of Saarland. In summary, we discussed the different perspectives employed by different cultures, and how it’s important to recognize and accept the differences, as well as be ready to attempt to shift our perspective to understand another culture. To put this into practice, we played a game called BumBumBoas, where we were split into two teams with different cultures and had to try to work out the differences between each other while following the set cultural rules. I’m not going to get too much into the explanation because I don’t want to give it away in case students going on this trip in the future read this.
The shops in the village down the hill from the Akademie are very nice to have on hand. I got some candy and chips from the Penny grocery store to supplement our light meals, which unfortunately do not often agree with my picky appetite. I also finally found a ballpoint pen in the Rossman drug store! The fountain pens were too expensive for me to justify when I knew I was going to go to France soon and be able to buy a much nicer one for the same price… I miss my pen. I regret losing it right before going to the airport to come to Germany. But I guess if that’s the most traumatic thing to happen to me this summer so far, I’m still doing pretty good.
After lunch, we had a lecture and workshop called “Intercultural Communication” led by Claudia Heß from the University of Saarland. In summary, we discussed the different perspectives employed by different cultures, and how it’s important to recognize and accept the differences, as well as be ready to attempt to shift our perspective to understand another culture. To put this into practice, we played a game called BumBumBoas, where we were split into two teams with different cultures and had to try to work out the differences between each other while following the set cultural rules. I’m not going to get too much into the explanation because I don’t want to give it away in case students going on this trip in the future read this.
The shops in the village down the hill from the Akademie are very nice to have on hand. I got some candy and chips from the Penny grocery store to supplement our light meals, which unfortunately do not often agree with my picky appetite. I also finally found a ballpoint pen in the Rossman drug store! The fountain pens were too expensive for me to justify when I knew I was going to go to France soon and be able to buy a much nicer one for the same price… I miss my pen. I regret losing it right before going to the airport to come to Germany. But I guess if that’s the most traumatic thing to happen to me this summer so far, I’m still doing pretty good.