20 August 2014
Today, Eric went to his first day of work, so the kids an I were on our own for the day. We enjoyed some time at a nearby park. It’s beautiful here - crisp, cool air and huge green trees everywhere make for wonderful parks. The kids were happy to get out and enjoy the weather. Cooper and Addie found a small merry-go-round that went so fast, I thought for sure Addie was going to fly off. Tucker and Tyler found a good ol’ fashioned wooden see saw and they thought it was the best thing ever. The just don’t make playground equipment like this anymore in the states. They had a great time playing with each other… and I’m starting to see that all four of them can have a really great time together, like best buddies do. I really like that.
While I was watching the kids play, I looked around and observed the other adults in the playground. One woman was speaking Russian to her two children, and another woman was speaking a language I didn’t recognize. I hear so many languages spoken here on a daily basis that it is hard to believe I am actually in a German speaking country. Vienna is very international and very multi-cultral, so I suppose the people here are used to hearing a million languages all around them. My focus, however, is to learn German. I know from my mission experience that the best way to learn a language is to speak to the natives. So I began to work up the guts to speak to one of the two adults that I heard speaking German. One of them was a young father of an adorable little girl. She was playing near Tyler in the sand. They began to interact and the little girl began to be very friendly with Tyler. She began to give him hugs, and then went in for a big kiss! It was so cute, and both her father and I began to giggle. Perfect time to ask my pre-rehearsed German question: “Wie alt ist deine tochter?” (How old is your daughter?), I asked, with very slow, broken words. Well, despite my imperfect speech, he definitely understood me, and answered in a flurry of German going on and on and on… with the intent to carry on a full conversation with me in German. I did my best at noddding, smiling, and saying, “Ja, ja.” (yes, yes), but I only understood about 10% of what he was saying. I caught that the little girl was 18 months old and that she has a brand new baby sister at home. About five minutes into the conversation, I think I must have missed something, because he somehow realized that I wasn’t understanding and began speaking to me in English. Whew!
As far as learning German goes, I definitely have a long way to go...