Willkommen: Deutschland

Well, the big day finally came.  I am sitting in my apartment/dorm room in Gießen, Germany...finally.  After all the buildup and anticipation for coming here since winning a spot in this exchange program, I have made my way at least by plane and by train to this medium sized university city.  I AM TIRED.  15 or so hours of flying with 2 connections but no break (our planes landed, we ran, the next plane took off), made for a very rough travel day.  But, because we flew into and through the night, our arrival plus lack of sleep made us think that only a normal 9 or 10 hour day had gone by instead of the 17 or 18 hours from first take off to arrival in Gießen.  Thus, I slept just fine Thursday night and awoke refreshed Friday morning.  There is much that happened just on the way here but I merely include pictures that hopefully will reveal what has gone on.  But I'll come back to those. :)

So, first full day in Gießen! What happens?  To start, I haven't had the internet and have really been aching for it, which just goes to show how much I must be addicted.  Secondly, since this is a summer LANGUAGE course, we had to take a test first thing (before Coffee!!) to determine which level group we should be in.  They are trying to make sure that beginners aren't stuck with more advanced speakers of German and vice versa.  I won't find out my results ever but will be told what group I'm in on Monday.  It was interesting and just like the tests I recently was taking at UW, but there were words that I didn't understand.  Moving on and please forgive the length, I want to say a bit.

After the test, we had a Kaffeepause or Coffee break.  I met some new people there and would like to say a few words.  Victor, or as he is called at home Calin, is from Romania and does not know Germany very well, possibly at all.  He is here to learn.  His English is great and is an example of how messed up our country is when it comes to languages, but I digress.  Victor is a slow talker, not because he doesn't know how to say anything, but because he doesn't like to repeat himself.  Awesome.  Then I met two guys from Estonia (don't know where that is? look it up).  Pritt and Sander are interesting guys who also don't know German and have a thicker accent than Victor when they speak English.  On the train with Rachel, Jeff and I was a exchange student who will be here all year too named Yasmin.  She is from Turkey and has difficulty with German and English.  It has been interesting trying to talk with her.  Today, I tried to describe what 'humid' was.  It was difficult!  

After we were done with being introduced to the itinerary of the course, we were set loose for the day.  Rachel and I both didn't have internet in our rooms so we decided to head downtown and find an electronic store to get some CAT5 cabling and Victor, Pritt and Sander came along.  I will have to tell more about downtown on my subsequent blogs so be ready for them.  But I will tell you that outside the store we found our cabling in was a Biergarten.  Yes, I had a beer with Rachel, Pritt and Victor.  I had a dunkel or dark half-liter beer on my first full day in Germany.  It was right I think.  It was amazing sitting in an actual German beer garden drinking German beer and thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'm actually in Germany which is in Europe.  What am I doing!?"  So, pictures ensue since I don't want to talk too much.  Love you all out there and if you're one of the anonymous readers, I thank you.  

Pic1: Rae and I after 10 hours or so of flying.

Pic2: Jeff and I after 10 hours or so of flying. (Honestly, no clue what the Icelandic flight attendant was doing.)

Pic3: A view of the building I'm in (it's the middle one in the back).  I have a view to a wooded area.  It's nicer than the courtyard and the room is nice too.

Pic4: My first beer in Germany with new friends Pritt (left) and Victor (middle).

Rediscovery

With only 8 days until the great grand adventure, my panic attacks have begun to come more frequently and even while I sleep.  The intensive language class is ending this week and since it has slowed down considerably (i.e. all homework is now completed, 3 days ahead of schedule), I have discovered something amazing.  Well its actually a rediscovery.  

I like science.  I mean REALLY like science.

It's like a festering scab wound thing that you just have to itch and it makes it worse but it feels so good and you just have to itch it one more time because of some weird feeling it gives that makes it feel better than when it is festering, scabbing... i think you get the idea.  I just read the two latest issues of Discover and Astronomy magazine and I'm borrowing the May issue of Science (very fancy) from the Physics department.  And I'm reading almost every article.  Geography, Chemistry, Biology, Psychology, Physics, and yes Astronomy.  I can't get enough.  Just one quarter without taking any kind of science class and I find that I can barely contain myself.  I want to be doing two research projects and learning how to present my work with new computer programs.  I can't wait for these plane rides so I can just sit and read magazines.  If only I could get my hands on the Astrophysical Journal I'd be set.  Alas, that costs quite a bit.  

Anyway, this just makes me feel better about the choice I made in picking the Sciences. Even though it is really hard at times, I enjoy it and just need to find that special niche where everything clicks for me.  I know that I'm not going to be a super genius, but I still love reading up on everything.  Jack of all trades, master of some - that's what I'm aiming for.  Prost!

Holy Cow!

So there are only 16 more days that I'll be in this country and then I'm gone for more than 11 months. I feel like there is so much to do and Rachel has even more that she has to get done. We're scrambling trying to finish our intensive German class, I'm praying that I haven't forgotten some important paperwork, and we're both still trying to get our crap organized and/or stored. In fact, I must be back to my homework. Prost!