What a good day

What can I say? Today was a very good day. Very busy, but very good. I woke around seven this morning to get ready. I had some bread and jam for breakfast along with what was basically a Cafe Americano...or coffee with steamed, foamy milk. My family has a coffee press, which is nice. I talked to my guestfather, Werner, for a bit as we ate, and then Kevin, who lives across the street from me, knocked on the door. Werner gave me a bottle of water to take, but of course it is carbonated water, as that is all they really drink if they drink water. I don't really like it, but I am going to have to get used to it. You can get still water, but you have to ask for "Stihlwasser" or Leigewasser. I think that's how it's spelled..or even said, but it means tap water. One thing we all have to get used to is the Bayerish, or Bavarian slang. It is very different than what we have all learned, which is HochDeutsch, or High German. For example, a lot of the articles are different from what we have learned. So if we learned Die Butter, for butter, here it might be Der Butter. I can't remember what the article. For any of you that have never taken a Fremdsprache, or foreign language, the article is bascially "the", but each word is designated male, female, or neuter. I have noticed that my guestfather often says, "He must do this", but the article should be it in English. For example, when we were trying to set up my computer for the internet, he spoke English. When he referred to the diaologue box, he used the article he, instead of it. I don't know if that makes much sense, but I think it should if you are familiar with foreign langauge. Anyway, such a digression. Well, here is another thought. I know this sounds silly, as I have only been here todays, but I am finding that it is sometimes difficult for me to think of a word in English, sometimes even commonly used words. I think maybe, since my brain works creatively, (which I can't remember if that is left, or right brain dominated) that maybe that is just the way my brain works. It just has a hard time trying to work both ways. I don't know if that makes sense either, and I know it sounds crazy because I have barely been here at all. Today, I think I made a lot of progress though. Yesterday was very hard, but today I am finding that I am able to comprehend and even speak much more. So I am very hopeful now! Ok..moving on.

So the ten people on the trip were to meet at the Albertstrasse (Strasse means street) bus stop so we could all take the bus together. Leonie and Orlando (two of the heads of the trip) met us there, and helped us get to the University. Kevin and I won't have to take the bus though, and walking to the bus was actually silly for us, because it is back tracking. We live very close to the university. We met up with the rest of the group there, and I met two new members who we weren't able to meet at the trainstation. Bozhidar, or Bo, who is from Bulgaria, but goes to school in the states, and Allison, who goes to Murray, but is actually from Evansville! Later, as we all filled out our registration forms, we found this out.

So we all made it to the university and we went to the classroom where we will have class. They will all pretty much be in the same classroom, because we are the only ten students taking these classes, as they are directed just for us! It actually will be quite nice I think. Today is Elyse's 21 birthday, so they had a cake waiting for her in the classroom. It was really nice! Oh, and they gave her this tiny Bavarian shot glass, that has a little spout that you drink from. Then we got our student ID cards, went over some schedules and student codes. And then we got our cards for the Mensa, or the cafeteria, but most of them didnt' work! Another head of the trip, Andi, had to have them worked out for us. After we went over those things, we went to eat in the Mensa. I got some kind of meat in a gravy, with rice. It was pretty good, but Orlando and Leonie warned us that the food in the Mensa can be quite bad, which isn't that different from Ball State. I also had a Fanta with lunch. WOOHOO!

We took a tour of campus, mostly to buildings we will never again visit, as all our classes are in the same place! Also, for the German registration, we have to have special biometric passport photos. I tried to have one taken at home, but apparently it wouldn't work. Leave it to the Germans to be strict on that, right? Well there are photobooths all over the place here, kind of like those sticker booths in the mall, where you can take the photo. Several of us had to take photos, and that was quite the experience!! Oh, another funny thing we all found out..Ted, another guy on the trip, mentioned that at first he had been very confused by some of the signs posted over the doors. The word ausgang means exit, but the signs have NOT in front of it, so it's NOTAUSGANG. Ted thought that this was a combination of German and English..so of course he was confused that over all the exit doors there would be a sign that says "not exit" But it turns ou that NOTAUSGANG means emergency exit. We all laughed about it for quite a while!

After the tour, we headed back to the bus station. Bo mentioned that he thought we should be going on the opposite bus to go home, as we were getting back on the bus we had came on to get where we were...does that make sense? Ok, anyway. So Orlando was very evasive. We rode the bus for a little while, and Kate mentioned, "Oh, I know where we are! We're near my house!" Elyse and Kate live very close to each other as well, but Elyse had not noticed where we were..haha. So it turned out we all went to Elyse's guestfamily house for a birthday party for her. Their house was very pretty! It was very funny, because Elyse's family doesn't really know any English. The mother's favourite thing to do is to make everyone eat way more than they can, so they had made about five different kinds of cakes, (a bundtcake, which seems to be common, an applecake, and some kind of berryroll) and there were two tables set, each with huge plates of cookies! The tables were set very nicely! It was so much fun, actually! We talked a lot, and had a lot of fun. Andi came later, and Elyse's mom gave him a plate with a piece of each cake, so he was very overwhelmed. She also made each of us have at least two pieces of cake, and would NOT take no for an answer! Also, the guestfather likes the Eagles a lot, and he had a live DVD playing on their tv. Also, we noticed a painting of him and his son, and he was wearing an Eagles tshirt! They also have a cat, which I played with a bit, and I am very jealous. We stayed there for a bit, and then a few of us went in Andi's car to go to the mall to get a few things. Allison and Kevin needed some notebooks and pins, and I needed some facewash, as the Germans confiscated mine in the Munich airport! Shopping was quite an experience. First we went to Kaufland (Kaufen means to shop..I think you can get the rest..) It reminded me a bit of a dollar general, in some ways, but it had two levels; with the top being things like householdy items, and the bottom was grocery and then some other items like cleaning supplies, cat food, and bath items. I was really amused because every so often the loud speaker would blare this little jingle, but all it said was "Kaaaaufen" in a female, singsongy voice. I laughed to myself, imagining being in Walmart, and only hearing "Shooooppping!!" Another funny point of interest. I was trying to get the german word for facewash, so I could know what to look for. Well, the word for face is gesicht. So face wash is somethig like Gesichtwasser, or facewater. But the word or history is geschishte (sp? I know how to say it though..) I am more familiar with the word for history, so I ended up saying I needed to get some "historywater". Needless to say, everyone teased me about that for quite a while! Anway, there were so many different types of face wash, and I really couldn't tell which to get. Luckily the ingredients are listed the same here as in America, because I am algeric to certain ingredients. I ended up just squirting out a bit to find a gel like substance that had the scrubby things. Sorry to the males reading this, I'm sure you're lost. Anyway. I also bought a waterbottle, but I had to go to a sports store for that. I really had a lot of fun shopping, which is unusual, but it was something very new! I mostly tried to do everything on my own, but Leonie was there to help. She was very helpful...but I did kind of just want to do it by trial and error, and I think I paid the cashier ok, because she didn't look at me weird or anything! I'm sure she knew I was foreign though..I could always tell if someone was when I worked at the grocery store. The four of us who went ot the shopping center ended up splitting up to go to seperate stores. Leonie wanted to make sure we could get home okay, and I assured here I knew, even though I wasn't really too sure. I took the roundabout way, but I made it! I was nervous about it, but I made it! I know mom will be mad to hear it, but guess what, you can't do anything. haha! But I was really proud of myself. I knew I was headed in the right direction though, because Renate pointed out to me that all the streets around ours are named after famous composers, so that really helped!!

I made it home fine, to find Fabian outside with his friends, doing skateboard things. We all sat down for dinner together, and the had made these apple pancake things, that we poured vanilla pudding over. I suppose they eat a lot of apple recipes, as they have the apple trees outside. We also had some bread, with meat and cheese. Here you don't always make a sandwhich, and sometimes just eat it openface. We had ementaller cheese, and brie. I liked both quite a bit. Werner, Renate, and I had some wine, and they let Isabella have some too, even though she isn't old enough. Or maybe, she just isn't old enough to order it in public? I thought the drinking age was 16, but I'm not sure. Or I think her birthday is coming up, and she is almost 16. I get a bit confused :)!! We actually had a really good conversation, mostly in German. I really only understand bits and pieces so far, but that is a lot better than before, and it is enough mostly to get the gist. Anything I really didn't understand, they just tried to explain in English. Then, after dinner, Renate, Isabella, and I watched "Memoirs of a Geisha", which in Germany is just called "Die Geisha". It was in German, but we put the english subtitles on, which I think helped me learn a lot, actually! We did this a lot in German classes, but I don't think I ever really paid enough attention to the German to really learn anything, but this time I thought it was really helpful. I really enjoyed watching the movie with them, and Isabella is super sweet!

I have to say it again, it was a really good day, and all I could think of was how happy I am that I came. I know there will probably be some tougher days, but for now, alles ist gut!