Sometimes it hits me how delightfully old-fashioned German can sound. If you were to directly translate some of the phrases, they come out quite British-sounding, and very charming. For example, the following which I recently wrote in a letter:

"Ich freue mich auf den Besuch von meiner Tante und hoffe sehr, dass mein Vater und meine Schwester ihre Reisepaesse bald besorgen und mich auch besuchen."

When I read this, my translation is something like "I'm excited that my aunt is coming to visit and I really hope that my dad and my sister get their passports soon and visit me too." But run through the automated-translation-gamut, it comes out sounding like this:*

"I look forward to the attendance of my aunt and hope very much that my father and my sister procure their passports soon and also visit me."

Isn't that nifty? So when I speak German, I'm speaking British, the only differences being 1. that I know how to do it and 2. it's in German.

Well, today it looks like I'll take my turn hasseling with the German post office to get them to allow me to send Christmas presents home for the low, low price of 32 Euro (does that make any sense?). Then I'll probably go to my cell phone company, 02, and yell at them for giving me a defective phone that shuts itself off every 5 minutes, and demand a replacement. (That sounds so much more successful and assertive on this blog than it will really be in real life.) Last plan is to go to the gym, and then find somewhere where I can dance tonight - for some reason I've been hit with a big wave of Tanzlust. Then tomorrow I'll be going on a shopping trip to Reutlingen with some other Amis to look for winter Strumpfhose (long underwear). I didn't think they'd be necessary but they really are - it's ridiculously cold here, and it's only November!

Til then, lieblings - tchau!

*The translation had a little help from me in the grammatics department. Didn't change the words, though.