Me standing on the balcony in the back of our hostel in Hamburg.

The view from our hostel.

There were fourteen participants (including me) and one instructor (Margaret Mullens) from Gallaudet University. For much of the three weeks, we stayed in a hostel in Hamburg, Germany. We also spent three nights and days in Berlin, and made side trips to places like Lubeck and Stade - tiny but gorgeous old towns.

Kari Bahl and I on a boat to Blankenese.

A gorgeous picture of Stade.

A traditional Hamburg dish: raw, pickled herring. I couldn't finish it up.

The objective of the class was to learn German sign language, or DGS (an acronym which I explained in the title). We also made various excursions. At Berlin, we saw pieces of the Berlin Wall, the Holocaust memorial, and the Judisches Museum. In Stade, a beautiful tiny town, we were given first class hospitality by the local deaf club, being served a delicious meal of genuine German food (for free!). In Lubeck we had an opportunity to view a beautiful old gothic church (creepy for some of the students). The cobbled streets and the overhead steeples made for beautiful scenery.

Kari and a piece of the Berlin Wall.

DGS was taught to us by two instructors, Chris and Stefan. Both are natives of Germany and live in Hamburg. Stefan graduated from Gallaudet some time ago. After Stefen received his degree from Gallaudet, he had to complete more schooling before he could satisfy the German equivalent of a bachelor's degree (apparently a degree from any American college doesn't meet the strict requirements of a German degree). Stefan went on to also get a master's degree in Germany. The school system in Germany is completely different than ours in America. In Germany there are several levels of secondary education, which include categories such as vocational, regular, low-education, and future college students. The advanced school, for which graduation is imperative for admission into any college or university in Germany, is not initially open to deaf students. They must attend the regular school, then finish up two more years at the advanced school before being able to go on to University.

During the three-week program, we picked up basic signs and idioms from class. Some classmates picked up sign faster than others, but that's just how it goes -- as with any other subject. We had several chances to interact with deaf people in Hamburg, Berlin, and Stade, and this increased our retention of the sign language. It's interesting how it's much easier for a deaf person to pick up any sign language than it is for a hearing person to pick up a sign language from their own country. Chris told me that it would take us maybe two weeks to pick up what would take hearing interpreting students perhaps two months to learn. By the end of the three weeks, I felt that I had really picked up a lot. I had picked up the basics from class, but most of my fluency was from the interaction with deaf Germans, proof of the saying, 'practice makes perfect.' At the end of the three-week program, we all had to take a test ("Prufung" in German), given by Chris and Stefan, measuring our fluency in DGS. Our grade on the Prufung is worth a lot in our final grade for German Studies.

I'd have to say the whole experience was worth it. This was the first time that Gallaudet offered a program for instruction in DGS in Germany, but I already know that there are plans to offer the course again in two years, so I strongly encourage anyone who may be interested to sign up for this course. It's an experience of a lifetime! Advice: take a year of Introduction to German to ease your learning experience.

Mare and Viktor, a young German couple who invited those of us who were still around on June 11th, to their home for a real home-cooked German meal. Delicious!