Reflections

The pre-semester language course is over, and classes started Monday.  So how are things looking for this year abroad?

Just a little self congratulations.

First off, the last three weeks.  After three weeks in Germany and the two-week intensive course (5 1/2 hours Monday through Friday and 4 hours on Saturday!), my German is definitely improving.  Am I still missing a bunch of what people say?  Unfortunately, yes.  However, I'd be selling myself short if I said I haven't made any progress.  (At least I would like to think so.)  I got a 2.0 (roughly a B+ in the American system) in the intensive course, which is a good place to start.

The international students hikes up to
Willibaldsburg (castle in Eichstätt).

So far, I'm loving everything about Eichstätt, Germany, and Europe in general.  It's been awesome meeting and getting to know so many people from so many different backgrounds.  My Facebook newsfeed is now flooded with a bunch of other languages which, while meaningless to me, I find pretty cool.  Not that I was necessarily expecting it, I haven't gotten any anti-American sentiment directed towards me.  I did get one lecture on the flaws of America as a whole, but the guy was perfectly fine with me personally.  Also, the 75% female student population continues to be nice.

Our running dinner team and dessert guests.  From left to
right, someone (Germany), Meliha (Bosnia), myself (USA),
Mario (Bosnia), Marta (Poland), Nurshod (Uzbekistan),
Chiara (black top, Italy), Joanna (red top, Poland), and
Javier (Spain).

So much fun was the running dinner put on by AK International (the university group helping international students acclimate).  Divided into to teams, we were instructed to make either a appetizer, a main course, or a dessert.  My group decided that reading and following instructions is for yellow-bellies, and we made a main course instead of our instructed dessert.  We then brought our main course to the first meeting place.  After discovering that not only were we not supposed to do bring our food to the studihaus, but that we were supposed to make a dessert, we carried our pot of spätzle with cheese and tomatoes around Eichstätt for the next three hours.  Meanwhile, we tried to come up with a dessert we could make with our negligible amount of time left available to us.  Ultimately, we had chopped apples covered in cinnamon sugar with tea.  I think it went over pretty well.

On the topic of food, I think I've been pretty good about eating anything put in front of me.  I probably ate more raw tomatoes, something I never ate at home, over the course of the running dinner than I have eaten in my entire life (tomato sauce aside).  Everything here (and from all around Europe), has been really great.

For the next semester, I'll be doing a lot of German language classes with the hope that my German will improve to the level at which I'll be able to take history classes in Germany.  My German language classes are as follows: Deutsch B1, Textarbeit, and Konversation und Hörverstehen.  In addition, I'm taking Deutsche Landeskunde nach '45, which is history class designed for low-level German speakers.  Finally, I'll be taking two classes taught in English: Media Sociology and US Foreign Policy.  All should be pretty interesting.

I don't know if it's just because I'm not tuned into the party aspect of college at Wyoming, but the amount of partying that goes on here is ridiculous.  There are parties all the time.  Last night was the 'official' year beginning party at Guttman's (a bar), that went until 4:00 AM this morning.  On Thursday, there is another 'official' year beginning party at Dasda (a club).  I'm just glad I didn't have class today.  Not because I'm hung over, mind you, but because not going to sleep until 6:00 AM doesn't really allow you to wake up at a reasonable time.

That's all for now.  I'm off to Switzerland this weekend to hang out with my oma, which will be awesome.  Tschüss.