So I´m actually here - Also bin Ich echt hier

My flight was long, but a week later I've already adjusted to the time and am beginning to feel at home.

I couldn't post anything so far because I had a week-long orientation in Lauenburg (Hamburg area) in a Youth Hostel with no wifi.

Frankfurt Flughafen

Entrance to the Hostel

Germany snack-time: Sparkling Apple Juice + Ketchup Chips = Lecker!!!

Lets talk about that for a bit:

"Schildkröte", "Schummeln", "Techtelmechtel", "Ein Bisschen" und naturlich "Jetzts gehts los"!!!
These are all words that we learned, well not really, there was a wall where people wrote new words they learned and, yeah.

There was only one other american there with me, the other "Amis" went two weeks earlier to a different orientation. Jacob (the other american, and two was plenty) and I went to this one because we knew pretty good German already.
I got a few compliments on my German, but to talk myself down a bit, I was the oldest one there and all the Europeans take upwards of 3 foreign languages. Most of them knew English better than German, and I was translating German to English for them.

I met some really awesome people from:
            Poland, The Czech Republic, Italy, Georgia (shout out to the whole Georgian mafia you're awesome), Serbia, Romania, Moldova, and Bulgaria. --> Actually, shout out to everyone, everyone was super wonderful and most people got along really well. A few even told me that Jacob and I really improved their impression of Americans (woot woot).
            Also, the volunteers were also great!!! And I really appreciate that they took the week to run this orientation, go jogging with me (Momo), and give me some german acapella songs (wieder Danke Chiara!).

I miss them all so much already, and hopefully I'll get the chance to see some of them again at a middle-year seminar, a get together in Göttingen (kind of in the middle for everyone), and of course a visit to Prague (Kamila!)


Ok, this was a pretty long post, and I still have more to share, tomorrow I'll write another post about moving in with my host family in Kurort Hartha.

I will leave you with these pictures of my host-pets: Garfield, Lizzie, Prinz, & Motte.