Germany, the East Side of Detroit?

A funny thing happened this weekend.  I took Lainey to the Opel Zoo for "Mommy and Lainey Day" while the boys went to get muddy playing football in a park.  She and I were checking out the meerkat exhibit when we heard a few boys behind us comment:  "The meerkats are cool, but they aren't anything like the prairie dog exhibit at the Detroit Zoo.  I like that way better!"  Later that day, Lainey wanted to drive the little cars, so I let her.  For the cost of 1€ she was able to cruise around in a car with a Michigan license plate! 

Welcome to the Frankfurt/Wiesbaden area.  It's the far east side of  Detroit, just with a bit of an accent.

Sometimes, it doesn't even feel foreign around here.  It is as if the midwest hiccupped and a few thousand people from Chicago, Detroit, Columbus, and Cleveland got spit up a few thousand miles away. At least in Zurich, we had the "foreign-ness" of meeting people from all around the world.  Here, my friends are mainly from the midwest, with a heavy majority being from Detroit with the same company.  I have one or two acquaintences who are English and one German friend-but she and her family are moving to Chicago in April!

I have had to jump back into German lessons just to feel like I'm not living in Detroit!  I started a new course in our city.  It's a group course for immigrants.  It is me, a few women who are married to Germans, or whose families moved here permanently years ago, and 2 au pairs. It is certainly a mixed bunch!  There is me from America, and women from Japan, China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and France.  So guess what-German is the only common language!  It is a bit stressful, considering even the teacher doesn't speak English and I've joined a level 3 class!  It is all the stuff I told myself 2 years ago I wasn't going to bother with: grammar rules. 

German is a completely complicated language with 9 or 12 (I've lost count) words that all mean "the" and another 9-12 that mean "a/an" depending on where the "the" or "a/an" fall in a sentence (subject, direct object, or indirect object).  But, those rules can change if a certain preposition is found in the sentence.  And, don't forget that each time you change the "the" or "a/an" that means if an adjective is in a sentence you need to add an ending to it.  And, yep, there are 9-12 different endings for these adjectives!  It is a darn good thing that I have a degree in English and that I know what subjects, direct objects, indirect objects, and prepositions are or I'd be completely lost.  As it is, I'm 3/4 lost. 

But, I keep trying.  Yesterday, I brought my German homework to school when I went to pick up the kids so I could ask my German friend, Susi, for help since I can't ask my teacher to explain, since she'd only explain it again in German!  Susi is the one moving to Chicago.  She's lived there before and speaks perfect English and is a teacher at the school.  Even she, a native speaker, had a hard time explaining it to me. Even further, she told me that if her sons, all native German speakers, were given my homework, she thinks they'd only get 2 out of 5 right on average! That made me feel much better! 

Today, she told me her 5th grade son was impressed with me.  He overheard her working with me yesterday and told her that I am the first English person he has ever known who even knows what "dativ" and "akkusativ" tenses are. 

Not bad I guess, I'm happy with that!