as a young girl, my family and i traveled frequently (sometimes even twice a year) to germany to visit my mom's side of the family. i always thought it was very cool that i had a german aunt and uncle, two german cousins, a german great aunt and uncle, a german second cousin, and a german grandmother- who i called oma. i was only three when my oma had passed away, but her and i were able to create our own little language, in which we were the only two who understood one another. still to this day, my family still tries to decode the language through home videos.
since we traveled to germany frequently and my mom is a native german speaker, she encouraged my brother and i to attend german school on saturday mornings, in order to help us gain the basics of the language. speaking german growing up was encouraged and most of the home videos from my childhood included either jonathan (my younger brother by 362 days) and/or i singing a german song or rhyme that we had either learned from my mom or through german school.
over the years, i have been able to spend several different times of the year in germany. my favorite, however, has always been during the christmas holiday, when my entire family cuts down a live christmas tree, visits weihnachtsmarkt (christmas market), lighting live fireworks on new years, and takes a hike to the small church in the woods with candles.
in an less than three weeks (18 days to be exact), i will be headed on a three week solo adventure to deutschland to spend time with my extended family and get to experience some of my favorite parts of germany, in celebration of moving into my senior year of college (which i still can't get over). And of course, marking my last summer as a college student before i've got to enter the teacher job hunt next spring.
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