Let's see. Flight was
weird. Not too bad though. I mostly just didn't like sitting down for
that long. It was a 10+ hour flight. Hour and fourty five minutes from
Salt Lake to Seattle Washington, then then 10+ hour one to Amsterdam,
and then an hour an a half flight from there to Berlin. Twenty-ish
minute layovers each time. Taking off and landing were rather fun, but
other than that it was just a whole lot of sitting down. Oh yeah, and
turbulence was pretty awesome. I liked that. Even though we only ever
got really mild stuff.
So I'd gotten rather little sleep the night before the flight, then
I didn't really sleep at all during the flight, and then when we landed
it was like 11 am, and we went straight into doing stuff. We were all
dead tired. It wasn't horrible though. Mostly just rather crazy. And I
kept getting all dizzy feeling, feeling like the ground was still moving
around under my feet a little like I was still on the plane. -super-
tired. Not so tired anymore though. It was mostly just that first day.
Germany is cool. Rather different cars. Lots of hatchbacks, plenty
of smart cars, they all look kinda snub-nosed. The streets are tighter
and a little crazier, but people are a lot nicer while driving. When
people need to pull out into traffic, they just kinda do, and people
just let them in. It's not even a big deal. Cool stuff.
Everything for the most part tends to look older in general. Older
streets, older buildings, older trees. There are a LOT of trees. All the
buildings are super tall too. Usually at LEAST three stories. Makes it
impossible to get a gist of where you are because all you can see are
the buildings on either side of you. I haven't been feeling
claustrophobic or anything though.
The public transportation is crazy good here too. Lots of busses
and trains and subways that are very useful. One card that costs 90
Euros, which is about 120 dollars, gets you free transit on anything in
the area for a month. {good thing we get re-imbursed from the mission
office on that one...}
My trainer {Elder Pierson} is a very cool guy. Really laid back.
We're getting along very well. I am enjoying learning how to do the work
and speak the language better. Not too stressful or anything, just
working my way forward.
So far I am understanding about 50% of what is said by the natives.
Some people talk really clearly and the only thing that holds me back
is vocabulary. In those situations where I can hear them clearly like
that, I understand more like 80 percent. Other people though slur a lot
more or mush their words together. I only catch like 20 percent of what
they say. My companion understands it all though and is very good about
translating for me when I am asked a question that I don't understand.
And as far as speaking goes, I feel that I am doing rather well for
where I am so far. I can usually express myself rather well. I often
don't know a word, but then I just ask my companion, and he suplies the
word, so I use it and continue. My grammer still must sound very broken,
and I am having a hard time using genders very effectively, but people
understand what I'm trying to say, and that's nice. :)
In German and many other languages, every single noun has a gender,
either masculine, feminine, or neutral. This affects how words like
'the' and 'a' are conjugated: 'the book' - in German book is a neutral
word, so one would say das Buch. 'the skirt' - in German, skirt is a
masculine word {very few words' genders reflect what they are} so
for 'the skirt' one would say der Rock.
All in all, after taking into account conjugating for the gender of
the word, whether it's plural or possesive, and what part it takes in
the sentance {subject = nomnative, direct object = accusative, indirect
object = dative, or part of a prepositional prase = whose case is
decided depending on the preposition} there are in total 16 different
possibilities, 6 different words for 'the', all of which used for at
least twice in the grid of possibilities. der, den, dem, die, das,
des Ridiculous, no?
Anyway!
I haven't gotten super homesick yet. But I don't feel like I'm the
kind of person to get homesick, so we shall see. I'm getting pretty good
sleep. Doing some good work. Gotten to contribute to some lessons so
far, some more than others depending on how much I was understanding,
and have been getting better at street contacting, though I still have a
very long way to go. :) I'm doing well and I'm happy.
The food has been good. A little strange, but good. Ate asparagus
for the first time the other day. It was a different kind than I was
used to seeing. It was white. Didn't really like it, but I finished it
off to be polite.
The weather has been good. Rather too warm actually. And the
humidity doesn't help. End up sweating a lot. Not horrible though. I
haven't really been bothered by it yet. :)
Oh right, I guess I should probably tell you what area I'm in...
It's called Spandau. It's a section of berlin. Kinda like the sections
of Salt Lake where they're pretty much their own cities, but they're not
actually considered as such. In any case, it's on the west side. Rather
pretty. Lot's of smokers and cars, but not horrible in any sense I
wouldn't say. {Oh, gas costs like 1.30 Euros here per liter. That's
something like 4 and half dollars a gallon or more. Ridiculous.}
They have these massive parks. Huge areas with lots and lots of
trees, kinda wilderness-y. It's cool. There will be big buildings and
bustling city on one side of the street, and a massive overgrown looking
park on the other. Have yet to walk through one. They specifically
build up and dense instead of out so they can preserve areas like that.
It's cool. Recycling is a much bigger deal here too.
They also have dedicated bike paths on the sidewalks of all the
major streets. {Please keep in mind that everything I tell you may only
apply to the Berlin city area, and even then, may only apply to the
Spandau area of Berlin.} These bike paths are serious. You don't walk on
them, because you could get bowled over by a bike. They will ring their
little bike bells at you and tell you unhappily to get off the path.
Cool that bikes are that prevalent though.
In any case, that's all I can think of to talk about. I guess I'll stop there for now.
I love you guys! Keep the Lord close, and make sure you are filling your life with Light! Go make today good. :)
- Elder Miles
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