After losing a whole day of my life through air travel, I have again reunited with my friends and 'family' in Germany. I arrived on Monday arround 4PM (after leaving from California on Sunday around 4PM) and have since had a great 48 hours or so chatting up a storm with my friend Sarah, her family, and my old host family. My German is already 50% better than it was when I arrived (in my generous opinion) but it has a while to go. I've also been enjoying the food, the bike rides, and the rain. We have a good storm coming up now from the Sahara, believe it or not.
Tonight I'm going with Sarah to her Chemistry course meeting. Classes sometimes meet up just for fun, and now that Sarah and the rest of the class I was in have just finished with their Abitur (German final exams) they have more reason than ever to meet and have a good time.
Not much has changed around here, except that everyone is two years older than when I left and my host family has a new (and very colorful!) apartment. It almost feels like I haven't left at all.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Grüße aus Deutschland!
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Preparing for Europe (Also: Someone needs a geography lesson)
I've spent the past few weeks getting ready for my two-month trip to Europe. Today I called my bank to let them know that I was going to use my ATM card abroad. This is what happened:
Woman: What countries will you be visiting?
Me: Germany, Austria, and Italy.
Woman: Let me make sure they're all in Europe...
5 seconds later:
Woman: Yes, they're all in Europe.
Me: ...
I hope the bank was monitoring my call so they could give her a geography lesson.
Other than that, preparations have been going pretty well. My Eurail pass arrived a couple days ago (worth 10 days of travel within 2 months). I've been gathering everything I need to bring. There are a few items that I know I have and want to bring, but because the house is rather disorganized at the moment I have no idea where they are. Hopefully they will turn up in the next few days, though.
My flight leaves on Sunday. I arrive in Germany on Monday. You have no idea how excited I am.
