{Language School}

Over three hundred hours... six teachers... at least twenty-seven different nationalities... measureless German grammar learned and forgotten... learned and retained... and friendships forged during after class coffees, ice creams and get-togethers.

It may have been language school but while sitting in  the renovated medieval prison building where the Volkshochschule makes its home, I received one of the greatest multi-cultural experiences of my life. Interacting with so many people every day, listening to their stories and telling mine all while communicating to each other in a language that is not our mother tongue... it's beautiful. I learned to love the diversity of our world even more and we all learned patience while interacting with our classmates from five very, very different continents.

I will be taking my German exam this weekend and this means the end of my VHS days. I will miss them, the people, my German studies (did I just say that?) and the flavour it all added to life. However, the connections made in those class rooms have a way of cropping up and continuing and I look forward to future kaffees and dinners with my class-mates. 

And language learning never, ever stops... really, it doesn't.

~

Countries of my classmates (as many as I can remember!): Italy, Greece, Spain, Slovakia, Russia, Portugal, Romania, Poland, Switzerland, Sweden, Bulgaria, the Jordan, Kenya, Rawanda, Cameroon, Madagascar, Algeria, Turkey, Iran, Cambodia, India, Burma, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Peru and Cuba 

Summer 2012

Spring 2013

Summer 2013