AMD 2- Eric Fix

Ich habe “My Foreign Adventure” gelesen. Es war sehr gut und sehr informativ. This blog served as a very good insight into just what it is like to participate in the “Academic Year in Freiburg” program at Michigan. Reading this blog was of great value to me because I am definitely thinking about studying abroad in Germany sometime during my time here at Michigan and the Freiburg program may be something I would want to do. From reading the first couple of entries of this blog, I was able to get a better idea of some of the logistics of this program (travel, accommodations, etc.), and this was information that is very good to know and be aware of should I eventually participate in this Freiburg program.

Reading this student’s blog for this AMD was a bit like reading the “Kultur” articles, only I found this blog to be much better since it is a real-life experience and we know that all of the aspects in it are first hand accounts. I thought that it was very cool that Allison was taking a German history course there and was able to see the certain aspects in real-life, such as certain parts of the Holocaust history. Something I found particularly interesting was the architecture of the building she mentioned visiting at the top of the blog.

I was able to recognize some aspects of German culture being carried out in her blog. For instance, she lived on the “6^th floor, which really means the 7^th floor”, which is something we learned about in an earlier chapter. I thought it was funny that she didn’t use the elevator because the sign said “Im Brandfall Augzug nicht benutzen”, which she interpreted as “don’t use” because those were the only words she recognized at the time, when really it meant “don’t use in case of fire”. This was a good representation of the fact that if you are in another country you have to become accustomed to the different everyday sayings in another language. I could imagine that there was a bit of a learning curve before this happened.

I thought it was also interesting how it was helpful practice for her that the guy she was carrying on a conversation with was teasing her for her mistakes. This is also something Allison probably had to get used to, and it was cool that she got a lot of practice speaking while she was there. I feel that this is an aspect that would be useful for becoming more proficient in German, and this is definitely a huge upside to participating in such a study abroad program. Overall, Allison’s blog was pretty cool, and I think it was able to give me a better idea of just what it would be like to participate in a study abroad program like “Academic Year in Freiburg.”