After the first week, well it was not really a full week, but you get the point, I began to meet some more people. So far, I have met many, many people from around Europe, most of whom are students on a European wide exchange program called ERASMUS. I have met and befriended many students from Poland, Czech Republic, Italy, Greece, Finland, Holland, Ireland, et cetera, you get the point! What is really cool about having newly made friends from around Europe, is that they all speak German really well, and they also speak English. These last few days we have had small gatherings in one of the communal kitchens in our building, and the conversations bounce around between German, English, Greek, and Polish! I am actually starting to learn just small bits and pieces of Greek and Polish!! :)
I have also met two awesome guys who are from UW-Lacrosse!! Small world!
Another great thing about having met my group of international friends, is that their organization, ERASMUS, has planned out for them different trips, on which the entire group goes together, and I plan on tagging along on many of these trips, just to experience parts of this country with my friends! Why not, right?!
One of the events took place last night. At 20:00 (8:00pm) the ERASMUS students were to meet by the Südhauptbahnhof, where they were going to go on a pub-crawl to four different bars in the inner city. I, of course, decided to tag along! Before we left our building, my friends and I met at 18:00 to have a group dinner and have a few drinks before heading out to the event. We had a nice smorgasbord of sausages, bread, very soupy spinach, and some sauce filled meat balls, along with some other random fixings. Like many of our other nights spent in the kitchen, our conversations bounced around the different languages! Then we left for the pub-crawl to join up with a group of about 100 international students. 100 students all going to different bars together! "This will be interesting," I thought to myself, but we made it work! Each of the bars we went to, although tiny, was able to accommodate about 1/3 to 1/2 of our group at a time; people would get there drinks then go outside the bars to enjoy them, because in Germany, it is legal to drink alcohol out in the open air no matter where you are.
Throughout the night I got to meet a lot more of the international students, who were friends with the friends I had already met, and again conversations ranged between a variety of languages; but if I had to keep track, I think that 75% of the conversations I was a part of took place in German!! (By now I have been in Germany for more than one week, and as of this past Tuesday, I have felt that my brain is now beginning to process German much easier than the last week; I have had my language course for about 3-6 hours a day, and I have just been exposed to the language for a lot longer now.)
At the end of the night, we were luckily able to catch the LAST train home!
This morning then, Thursday, I was able to go with my friend, Aga, to FINALLY get our Immatrikulation (enrollment) paperwork turned in, so in two weeks, I can pick up my student ID/free transit ticket, my GoetheCard, and that will mean the only more paperwork I need to get is my residence permit to stay in the country!!
That about does it for now. I have bought bus tickets to go down to Nürnberg to visit some of my old GAPP exchange students this weekend!! I am so excited for that!!
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