In preparing for this trip, I have made a special effort to make myself culturally aware. I come from a large Italian family (pasta four times a week) and I understand the Italian culture and language fairly well, but the culture of Germany was completely veiled before this trip. Over the last week I have begun to learn more about the German culture and history. It is truly a country of rich heritage, fine food and beautiful art and music.
I still need to work on my German though. In an email
to my host family a few weeks ago, I decided that instead of looking up the
translations in a German dictionary, I would just use Google translate.
However, I neglected to check the translation afterwards. So instead of writing
"there are no oboes in American marching bands" I sent "in America
the oboe is unimportant." My gracious host student, Magdalena, acted as
good sport throughout the whole thing and only offering to correct my spelling.
The members of the band and I are so excited to meet our host families when we
arrive next week. I am especially excited to use the new German translation
book my neighbor lent me so that I “don’t say anything too rude"....
