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Schreibprojekt 5: Eine Reise (Klassenschreiben)

Describe a vacation or trip that you took. The trip can be one where things went really well and you had a great time, or it can be one where things went horribly and you had problems. If you want to make up details, that’s fine -- there’s no requirement that you narrate a true story! Please write in the past tense -- either the simple past (ich ging, ich kaufte) or the perfect tense (ich bin gegangen, ich habe gekauft). (You can mix simple past and perfect tenses if it seems appropriate.) Some ideas of things you might want to talk about are: •  where did you go and what did you see or visit? •  who went with you? •  how did you travel there? •  where did you sleep? how long were you there? •  what did you eat? •  what was the weather like? what time of year was it? •  why did you go there? (you don’t need to answer this, but perhaps you had a good reason) Your narration of what you did and saw will be in the past tense (barring any dialogue in quotes that you might want to include). But at some point in your description, I would like you to include two or three sentences in the subjunctive mood. You should simply describe one or two of the following things: •  what you should have brought with you   Ich hätte einen Regenschirm mitbringen sollen. •  what you wish you had done in addition or instead, for example:   Ich wünschte, ich hätte meinen Freund früher angerufen. Dann hätten wir mehr machen können. •  what you would have done if you’d had more time   Wenn ich mehr Zeit gehabt hätte, wäre ich ins Museum gegangen. •  what you could have seen or done but didn’t end up doing   Wir hätten einen Film sehen können, aber wir waren zu müde. •  if it was a horrible experience, you can say where you wish you had gone instead   Ich wäre viel lieber nach Florida gefahren, wo es nicht so kalt gewesen wäre! There is no minimum or maximum word count for this assignment -- different people write at different speeds, and I don’t want you to rush through trying to reach an arbitrary limit. Still, I would think that a reasonable effort would be to write at least 10 sentences, and you’re welcome to write more if you feel like it. Please write for most of the allotted time -- if you finish everything you have to say in 5 minutes, try to come up with a little more to talk about! Please do check over your work for grammar mistakes as much as possible, but be aware that it’s only natural to have more mistakes in timed-writing than in work that you do at home. You can reference your textbook and notes and a dictionary if you need them, but don’t spend too much time trying to figure out an arcane grammatical rule that you can’t remember. If you’re really having problems, you can ask me for help, but I may choose not to give you the entire answer. :) Finally, here’s a short list of vocabulary that you might find useful, just to save you time on looking things up: das Hotel, -s...............................hotel/motel   bei meinem Freund zu Hause....at my friend’s house die Jugendherberge, -n...............youth hostel   bei John zu Hause..........................at John’s house das Wohnmobil, -e...................................RV   geöffnet / geschlossen......................open / closed die Tour, -s / die Rundfahrt, -en...........a tour   wegen Umbauarbeit............because of construction die Sehenswürdigkeit, -en....tourist attraction   zelten, campen (weak verbs)........................to camp besuchen (weak verb)................to visit, attend   verbringen (verbrachte)......................to spend time besichtigen (weak verb)..................to sight-see   ausgeben (gab aus).........................to spend money

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