Dienstag, 25. August 2015
Just a little late
durhamfamily, 00:49h
Hello Everybody!
I'm sorry this is a little late this week. The weekend was pretty full, and I knew you wouldn't mind waiting as long as I came back with some good stories.
First and biggest news of all: I got my first speeding ticket this weekend! Rewinding a little bit...
Our German teacher is unbelievably nice. Her husband was not using his car this weekend, so out of the blue she offered it to us.
On Friday we drove the car to the Seeger household. For anyone who doesn't remember: the Stefan worked with me when I first started at ZF. We had a delightful evening with them in their home... speaking English, playing with their children and their dog. It is a shame that we are not able to do it more often.
Here in Germany, traffic is monitored by completely by cameras. It's a very fair and reasonable system. You know that speeding equals ticket, so you don't speed. Well, we were caught by a traffic camera on the way home from the Seeger house. You know when it catches you because it flashes a blinding light in your eyes (smart, right?). I'm not thrilled about it, though, because I maintain that I was following the speed limits to the best of my knowledge. You could almost say that I was obsessive over them (yeah - I don't want to cause trouble if I'm literally incapable of communicating with law enforcement).
Anyway, because I THINK I was going the speed limit, I have no idea how much I was speeding. At least if a cop pulled me over, I'd know what kind of trouble I was in. That's my first issue. Secondly, it wasn't our car! Now, because of this camera system, we must explain the ticket to our German teacher... when the police mail it to her house.
Needless to say, I refused to drive the car on Saturday. Instead, I used my long run to climb a few of the big hills in the neighboring cities. I've spent weeks looking at these hills from afar, wondering exactly what and where they were. It is very rewarding running to something that you can see far off in the distance. I should keep track of which ones I've visited.
On Sunday we drove to Bartholomä (pron. bar-toe-loh-MAY) for a giant horse festival! Elizabeth posted several videos on Facebook. Germany seems so much like America... except for the times when it totally doesn't. She has some pictures, too. I'll tell her to post them on here this week.
That's a random picture of our tower. There are five of them along the outer wall of the city, but this is the one right next to us (and it is the reason why we'll never need to purchase a clock for the apartment). I'm fairly certain that we have the best one.
Before I say goodnight, I want to apologize for any current or future grammatical errors. I find that I am losing both my German and my English and a fairly rapid rate. To make matters worse, the German keyboard has a few critical differences to the English keyboard. I'm actually comfortable with them now... but that means that I make all sorts of typos when I'm back at home with this keyboard. It's just a mess, haha.
Macht's gut
I'm sorry this is a little late this week. The weekend was pretty full, and I knew you wouldn't mind waiting as long as I came back with some good stories.
First and biggest news of all: I got my first speeding ticket this weekend! Rewinding a little bit...
Our German teacher is unbelievably nice. Her husband was not using his car this weekend, so out of the blue she offered it to us.
On Friday we drove the car to the Seeger household. For anyone who doesn't remember: the Stefan worked with me when I first started at ZF. We had a delightful evening with them in their home... speaking English, playing with their children and their dog. It is a shame that we are not able to do it more often.
Here in Germany, traffic is monitored by completely by cameras. It's a very fair and reasonable system. You know that speeding equals ticket, so you don't speed. Well, we were caught by a traffic camera on the way home from the Seeger house. You know when it catches you because it flashes a blinding light in your eyes (smart, right?). I'm not thrilled about it, though, because I maintain that I was following the speed limits to the best of my knowledge. You could almost say that I was obsessive over them (yeah - I don't want to cause trouble if I'm literally incapable of communicating with law enforcement).
Anyway, because I THINK I was going the speed limit, I have no idea how much I was speeding. At least if a cop pulled me over, I'd know what kind of trouble I was in. That's my first issue. Secondly, it wasn't our car! Now, because of this camera system, we must explain the ticket to our German teacher... when the police mail it to her house.
Needless to say, I refused to drive the car on Saturday. Instead, I used my long run to climb a few of the big hills in the neighboring cities. I've spent weeks looking at these hills from afar, wondering exactly what and where they were. It is very rewarding running to something that you can see far off in the distance. I should keep track of which ones I've visited.
On Sunday we drove to Bartholomä (pron. bar-toe-loh-MAY) for a giant horse festival! Elizabeth posted several videos on Facebook. Germany seems so much like America... except for the times when it totally doesn't. She has some pictures, too. I'll tell her to post them on here this week.
That's a random picture of our tower. There are five of them along the outer wall of the city, but this is the one right next to us (and it is the reason why we'll never need to purchase a clock for the apartment). I'm fairly certain that we have the best one.
Before I say goodnight, I want to apologize for any current or future grammatical errors. I find that I am losing both my German and my English and a fairly rapid rate. To make matters worse, the German keyboard has a few critical differences to the English keyboard. I'm actually comfortable with them now... but that means that I make all sorts of typos when I'm back at home with this keyboard. It's just a mess, haha.
Macht's gut
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arboretum,
Dienstag, 25. August 2015, 1:09 AM
The traffic cameras that flash light into your eyes are rather old-fashioned, Germans also call them Starenkästen (plural; singular: Starenkasten) because they look like nesting boxes, (Star = starling). There are more sophisticated traffic cameras - called Blitzsäulen - where you don't notice it at all when they catch you. The police uses mobile traffic cameras, called Radarpistolen, sometimes they'll pull you out after they caught you with one of those.
Your German teacher's husband will get a letter, stating the fine. And you just learned four new German words. :-)
Your German teacher's husband will get a letter, stating the fine. And you just learned four new German words. :-)
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