Scrabble

Last night, Inga and our neighbor Leo busted out the German Scrabble board. I like to think I’m pretty good at this game in English, but it turns out that it’s harder in your second language. I (obviously) lost, but I still had a great time. Apparently Scrabble isn’t as common or as popular here as in the U.S., so I feel luckier than ever to be living here! By the time I leave Berlin my German Scrabble skills will more closely resemble my English Scrabble skills, although I suppose that may be due as much to my deteriorating English skills as to my improving German.

I do speak English regularly, but mostly in my English classes, where they are studying things like Florida, New York, and Ottawa. How is the weather in Tampa today? What time is it in Ottawa? What is Staten Island like? I have very little to add in terms of content to these lessons, so I try to be as linguistically useful as possible, and speak very slowly and clearly, in small words and simple statements.

Incidentally, here are my roommates: Inga and Julian.

And here is a picture of Lucy the cat: