I've been here in Germany for almost an entire month and am finally ready to start my blog. Nordrhein-Westfalen (the German state I am living & working in) began their 2 week long Fall Break today, so after only 2 weeks of working at the school, I'm heading off for vacation tomorrow! I'm terrible at staying concise, as all of you who have ever read an email, IM, letter, text message, etc. that I had written certainly know, but I will try my best to keep these posts short, sweet, and full of details.
(pic @ left: the street I live on)
1) Rheda-Wiedenbrück:
My home for a year. You can find it on a map of Germany by drawing a straight line between Düsseldorf and Hannover and I'm around the halfway point. It's actually two cities, like Dallas/Ft.Worth, but MUCH smaller. I live in the center of Wiedenbrück, which is filled with all old historic Fachwerk buildings and cobblestone, one-way streets. I see groups of Germans daily taking tours of all the old buildings, which have been incredibly restored and are all home to active businesses. All the stores close down for the middle of the day, Saturday mornings, and all of Sunday. The church bells nearby act as my snooze button by letting me know how close it is to 7 a.m.
My apartment has 2 rooms, a small bath & a small kitchen. I'm in the basement of a Familie Buck's home in one of these "Denkmal" buildings, meaning it is preserved by something like our historical societies. I look out over their garden, which is beautiful and often filled with pigeons (that detail reminds me a bit of Manhattan patios filled with potted plants--an effort to find private green space in the city). Some pics...
I ride around town in my bike! The other day I laughed out loud at how typically German my environment was--I was cruising 10 min. away from my house on a bike path with corn fields on one side, cows grazing on the other, and a moped passing me on my left. My bike is below (no gears, back-pedal breaks, soon to be outfitted with baskets to carry my groceries in):
Right now they are having a cool exhibit throughout Wiedenbrück, which I will be sorry to see taken down at the end of this month. There are lifesize sculptures of people engaging in normal everyday activities all over town. I'll show you a few here:
2) teaching
I'm working at a Gymnasium (track of education that those who eventually go to University in Germany pursue). I haven't really started yet, but all of my colleagues are extremely nice--many have taken me out in the evenings and weekends. I've been at the school for two weeks, and have mostly introduced myself to students and observed classes. Today I did mock job interviews in a 9th grade class. I've also corrected some 11th graders homework. I'm going to have 3 clubs/afternoon activities (called AGs) which will be games/theater for the younger students and a film club or debate club for the older students. I only have to work 12 class periods (45 min) a week, so that's pretty sweet. I'll probably never do a first period class and I'll have at least one free day a week.
3) Lufthansa...
...lost one of my bags. I don't want to talk about it. I get upset. I lost a lot of stuff. Thankfully none of my really expensive stuff was lost, except for all of my jewelry, but regardless, more than half of my wardrobe (including all shirts, shoes & exercise clothing) is gone, as is my year-long supply of contacts, my backpacking pack, my sleeping pad, and lots more stuff. It's just material stuff, but it is a real pain-in-the-ass--especially since I was really trying to live on a budget to save money to travel and now I have to buy all this basic stuff to stay warm, clothed, and comfortable. It really is too bad because after the 3 rounds of free drinks on my trans-Atlantic flight, I was starting to think it was the greatest airline ever...
4) travels
My host teacher, Lilo, is incredibly nice and has really welcomed me into both her home and family. She also arranged for & outfitted my apartment and helped introduce me fully to the school and city. Her older daughter, Anna, is 23 and wonderful. Of the German's I've met sofar, she's probably the closest to being what I might call a friend. Unfortunately for me, she is doing an internship in Hamburg now and then will be in Berlin at the Uni for all of winter. I got to visit her in Hamburg last weekend though, which was beautiful and fun! (we forgot to take a pic of ourselves however)
Tomorrow morning I'm heading to Starnberger See, just south of Munich, which is supposed to beautiful (my mom recited a bunch of fond memories she has from visiting her Grandparents there when she was a kid). I'm visiting a Servas host family. Servas is this cool travel organization that Maya, Max's girlfriend, introduced our family to, and I'm hoping to visit many Servas hosts throughout the year with my travels. Then on Monday I'm heading to Munich for the first time ever--and, of course, to enjoy some 9 a.m. beers while watching German women adorn dirndls and men in lederhosen at Oktoberfest! I'm going with another ETA from the U.S. who lives pretty close to me in Germany, Lauren. We were assigned as roommates at orientation and got along really well. She lived in Munich for a year when she studied abroad, so we have free housing setup and everything. The second weekend I'll be heading to Berlin to see Joanna Schenke from Pomona (and maybe I'll squeeze in another Servas visit)!
5) the language
Well, it isn't as fluent as I'd like it to be, but most of the Germans in Rheda-Wiedenbrück say that they're impressed with how well I speak and understand. Conversly, I feel ashamed by my german in all the classrooms where I see German students speaking English at a level that I presume to be much better than my german. With time I'm sure it will improve--having a TV in my room helps me hear german even when I'm alone in the evenings (CSI, House, Desperate Housewives, Greys Anatomy, Brothers & Sisters, oh my!)
6) friends/the Uni
I haven't made many German friends yet, but I hope that will also come with time. There are two students in the 13th grade at my school who I have hung out with some (one, Laura, is the daughter of the family I rent my apartment from and the other, Nicole, spent a year in San Antonio and her mom teaches my yoga class). I'm looking forward to hopefully meeting more people, like Anna, who are my age however. I enrolled in the University at Bielefeld (nearby bigger city) this week. The entire university is contained in one huge building. It is the ugliest, most depressing building I have ever seen--it has a real socialist look about it. I'm not sure if I'll take classes there yet, but maybe I can try and meet some people there through some standard student life activities. I may even find myself living in Bielefeld later in the year...who knows.
7) one last thing
Well, as always, there is probably more I could talk about, but I've already taken up enough of your time with this long post, so I'll sign off now. The last thing I want to say is that I would love to take advantage of this more:
That is a german "mail truck". The postage is excessively expensive from Germany, but I still love writing (and receiving *wink *wink) letters, so please email me your address!!!!
Wishing you well for wherever you are in the world today. Bis später, tchau.
