Classy

So we are going to try better to break the blogs up a little bit. Today I just wanted to share a little about our class we began yesterday. Also this is Jen, Jordan is making me participate so I apologize in advance that I am not as clever as he is, with my writing that is.

Overall, we have already learned a heap more of German, which has been great. We both walk out of the class excited and eager to return the next day. I promise Jordan is not sleeping. Yesterday and today we attended one class that if understood correctly is geared towards the test we have to take in a few months and pass to continue to be allowed to reside in Germany to work. On Monday and Tuesday we will attend the other option and Wednesday we get to decide. The other class is suppose to be a little bit faster but we both think it would be better to master everything the first time around since we have to pass a test and it is not just for fun!

I know you must be thinking this is really not that interesting and that you understand the scenario we are going through but here is the twist. In our class there is something like 23 people and these people are from all over the world. No joke, our classmates hail from Croatia, Turkey, Brazil, Romania, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Italy, Peru, Israel and I’m pretty sure I am missing one or two more. Just looking at the list blows my mind; that I am sitting in a class with all of these people trying to learn German. Many of these people, especially those from Kosovo and Iraq, are refugees that Germany has taken in, but, like us Americans, they must also learn German to be allowed to stay in the country. ( Can you imagine if the US implanted this rule???) You do not necessarily have to pass this test to get a VISA, however, in our case within three months on our tourist VISA no one would hire us so this is the next step. After speaking to the teacher who was letting us in on all of this, she also shared that it is so difficult for some of these people because they possibly have not had more then 4….YES, FOUR years of schooling. So not only are they trying to learn a new language, but they are learning how to write! Seriously. I know we have all read about this or seen it on the news but they are sitting next to me in class. If they do not pass this test I am not sure what will happen to them. And these are not people our age, these are men and women who have children and everything is on their shoulders to learn a new language to help provide for their family. I just cannot imagine having that pressure at the age of 45 to learn a new language.

So that’s all for now, I have to head to practice. We have Saturday free. I have a Cup game on Sunday, which from what we understand is a tournament on the side throughout the season, but it is with random teams not necessarily teams within our conferences. Jordan has the whole weekend free. We will probably spend some time in Basel tomorrow and then head to the gym to watch handball games. Sunday Jordan will have to coach the majority of our little tykes alone because I will have to leave for our game but someone else will pick him up later to come to my game. Later Gators!