Trying to summarize the very beginning

So I’ve been wanting to start a blog to track my whole year in Germany and see how it goes and such. And…I am finally starting it! Now that I’m a month in I’m going to try to rewind and remember everything. If I think of anything I forgot later on, I will be sure to add it in later! But here goes!!!!

So I flew from the Detroit airport on August 31, 2009 and switched planes in Washington D.C. and Vienna, Austria. I finally arrived in Frankfurt, Germany and all my flights were pretty good. Unfortunately, when I went to get my bags, I discovered that the airlines had lost them. My luck as usual. On a good note though, I didn’t have to try and carry huge suitcases with me on the train, which was a mess. I took a train from Frankfurt to Freiburg which lasted probably about an hour and half since I had to switch trains halfway through. Once I arrived I went to the table where we meet people from the program and they gave me the keys to my apartment and my room! There was someone there from the program who was also going to the same apartment so we decided to share a cab there together. I am so happy I did, cause otherwise I would have been completely lost! We arrived at the building, and sadly it probably took us about 20 minutes to figure out just how to find our apartments! We asked around for help and someone finally showed us how to find it. When I went into my room I met two of my roommates, one guy and one girl. When I explained that the airlines had lost my luggage, my female roommate took me to her closet and lent me some clothes and towels to use until I got my luggage back. It was VERY nice of her! Overall, I’m going to have six roommates. We have a bathroom with 2 toilets and a urinal, all in separate stalls of course! We also have a shower room with two showers in them, which is kind of stupid because we don’t take showers at the same time, but oh well! I absolutely love my room though. I finally have a closet I can fit all my clothes in, and the view is absolutely amazing. As soon as I walked into my room I walked straight to the window because it has a view overlooking the Schwarzwald (Black Forest). It is absolutely amazing. I am so lucky to be able to wake up to that every day.

The entire first week was basically getting used to the city of Freiburg. We took a few walking tours of the city and got used to the Straßenbahns (streetcars). Without those, I would never be able to get anywhere! I did purchase a bike, but I still have to get it. Whoops. Not too much happened this week. I was just trying to get used to where I live. The next four weeks we took a “German Language Intensive Course”. It just ended this past week and we now have a few weeks off until the University starts which is good. I feel like I knew a lot of the stuff they taught, but it was a good review, and I at least learned more vocabulary which will DEFINITELY help me during my time here.