Nur eine Woche und so viel!!!!! I really can’t believe that I’ve only been here for a week because so much has happened. I guess I’ll start where I left off—the Kneipe (student bar). I did go on Monday night, and it was an interesting experience. The bar is very small, but it has a couple of rooms (including a non-smoking room—yay!). There is basically enough room for everyone to stand around, drink beer, and talk. It is really a good way to be social, and you can meet a lot of people by going to the Kneipen every night. I’m actually planning on going to another one tonight… Stephen came to the Kneipe as well, and when we had both had enough (which was a little early because we were both exhausted), we walked home. It was nice to have a walking buddy because Ostenberg is about a 15-20 minute walk from Emil-Figge (the name of the buildings where I live), and it was a little late for me to be walking on a street that I’ve never been on before by myself. Now I know the way, and I would be much more confident walking by myself—the streets here are very well-lit and safe.
Speaking of walking, every day I walk to the University from my room, and I really enjoy it because there are fields on either side of the road. The fields smell like cow poop—especially when it has been raining, and this may sound weird, but I love the smell of cow poop. It reminds me of our farm in Virginia, and every time I smell it, it’s actually quite comforting, like smelling home. There are also bunnies all around my dorm, the walk to campus, and campus—especially when it is dark. Last night when I was walking back from the library, I counted 8 rabbits running around, sleeping, and chasing each other. It was wonderful. I think it’s neat that I am in the middle of the industrial area of Germany, but I can still experience this at least twice a day.
On Tuesday I had my first real day of Sprachkurs. There are 15 students in the third course, and 6 of us are Americans. The class isn’t too bad, but parts of it are quite challenging. We are going to be reading a German novel, Russendisko by Wladmir Kammer, and we are also covering some geography and a lot of grammar. One really nice thing about it is getting to know the other people. One of my favorite people in the class is Balazs. He is from Hungary, and he is one of those people who is always smiling. Everyday in class we have a 15 minute break, and both yesterday and today Balazs, a few other people, and I went to Sonnendeck. It’s a pretty cool café on campus with some delicious bread and desserts, and both days I’ve bought a Brötchen (small loaf of bread, think slightly larger than a roll) with chocolate chips in it—yum!
Today we had our academic orientation. They gave all of us course catalogues, gave us some information about how credits transfer home (almost all of the classes are 2 US credit hours), recommended some classes, and introduced us to our academic advisors. I have a meeting with my advisor, Veronika, on Monday to finalize my schedule. If everything goes as planned, this is about what it should look like:
Monday: 8:30-10:00, Gents Prefer Angels: Images of Victorian Women and Men
12:00-13:30, Deutsch als Fremdsprache: Koversation (German as a foreign language: conversation)
Tuesday: 9:00-12:00, Germany: Cultural Narratives and Cultural History (this is a blockseminar so it only meets for the second half of the semester)
18:00-19:30, Migration and the Global Horizon of Contemporary American Fiction
Wednesday: 10:15-11:45, Deutsch als Fremdsprache: Landeskunde—Literatur, Kultur, und Sprache (German as a foreign language: regional studies—literature, culture, and language)
14:15-15:45, Deutsch für Studium und Alltag (German for university studies and everyday life)
Thursday: 10:00-12:00 Sagen und Legenden (legends, myths, folkore)
Sounds pretty exciting, right? I think it is :-) Just so you know, if the title is in English, the class is taught in English, and if the title is in German and I had to translate it, the class is taught in German. There is a pretty good mixture of both classes taught in German and classes taught in English. We’ll see how my meeting goes with my advisor.
The sun decided to come out today, which was amazing because I’ve only seen the sun twice since I’ve come here. The weather is usually terribly dreary: cold, cloudy, windy, and drizzly. I’m really glad it was sunny today, because the weather was starting to get me down; it’s hard to stay optimistic when the weather is so depressing. Hopefully it will be nice tomorrow too. Tomorrow we don’t have Sprachkurs because we are going a ton of administrative stuff: signing my rent (and hopefully getting internet in my room), opening a German bank account, acquiring German health insurance, etc. It will be a pretty full day because after we are done, I’m going shopping with Carina—probably at Ikea. My room is in desperate need of a lamp because I only have one tiny light and it’s really dark in my room. I also need a couple other odds and ends like a teapot, and hangers.
Well, I think I’ve written enough, and all of you are sufficiently updated. Thanks for reading all of these—it’s much easier to update my blog than tell individual people what’s going on.
Tchüss!
1 comment:
I thought I was the only one who liked the smell of cow poop. I lived next to a farm in Maryville for 8 years, so I understand it being a familiar smell. Glad to know everything is going well in Germany. Hope you have a few more sunny days. It's dreary here.
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