Frühstücken

For those of you who don't know, today's title is one of my favorite words in German.  It means "to breakfast", which of course describes one of my favorite meals and past-times, and also makes me very happy they have a specific verb for eating breakfast, but not any of the other meals (that I know of...correct me if I'm wrong).  Finally, it's simply a fun word to say.  So, to give an example of how it is used:

"Am Donnerstag frühstücke ich mit meinen Freunde."

"On Thursday I breakfast with my friends."

This morning, I started out the day in one of the best ways possible:  after dropping off the girls at kindergarten, I rode my bike to the train station, hopped on a train (with Hugo), then hopped off and rode to my friend's house.  Even though I was little later than I had planned (missed the train by half a minute, and waited 25 minutes for another), it was a relaxed and lovely morning.  I am still at a point of being very slow to pick up on conversation, thinking hard to come up with the right words and right phrase to express my thoughts, and laughing a lot at the rough attempts at communication.  However, having friends who listen and ask questions is priceless.  And through this time of learning a new language, I am learning to listen...A LOT.  Especially in a large group of people, almost all I do is listen right now.  If I am able to engage somebody one-on-one, that is fantastic.  However, in a large group, the conversation moves so quickly that by the time I have formed a thought in my head, we have moved on to something totally different.  This will be a challenge to my tendency to clam-up in large groups anyway, even when they are speaking my language.  But I like challenges, and I think this is a good way for me to be pulled out of my shell.

Favorite moments from this week, so far:  a 4-way Skype call with my family;  putting new tires and tubes on my bike, all by myself(!), and then playing "repair shop" with the girls;  exploring the farmer's market with a classmate (and eating kiwi berries!);  and finally, hanging out with new and old friends last night and this morning.