Week One Down!

Week One in Germany

I've made it through my first week in Germany without any major disasters! I've managed to make it this far without getting too lost or confused. I arrived in Frankfurt without any problems, and we took the bus into Bonn. It started to snow a bit as we came into the city, but since then I haven't seen any snow, which is good I guess. It has been very cold though, and I've definitely had to adjust to the weather, particularly because we have a lot more walking to do here than we do in College Station. The public transportation system is kind of nice, as I can get to many places in the city rather easily.

The AIB classroom is definitely a big adjustment from what I'm become used to at A&M these past couple years. Our classes are tiny by comparison, and it definitely encourages a lot more participation than I'm used to, which will be nice. We started our German classes, and I can now count to 100 in German if I really wanted to, although rather slowly. Even in this one week, I feel as though I am making progress on my German, even if I still often don't understand a lot of what is being said. I am excited and a bit nervous for the enmodes project, as it seems like it will be a pretty big undertaking, since we're working with a real company now. I'm very interested in the workings of the lungs and the heart, so I'm glad that we'll be focusing on that for our project.

Life in Germany has been very different so far compared to in America. Obviously we are doing a lot more tourist things this week, and in the future we will be on a little more normal schedule, but this week went really fast, as we were always busy with something. I particularly enjoyed going to the vineyard and seeing the cathedral in Aachen. Living with my host family is taking a little adjustment for me. I am having to fight my instinct to stay in my room for the entire time when I'm home, not always successfully. It is a bit awkward right now with them, and I often don't know what's going on at dinnertime when they start talking in German, but I think it might be slowly getting better, and I'm sure it will continue to improve as I get to know them better. Overall, my time here so far has been pretty good, even if I can't take as long of showers here as I can at home. I'm looking forward to starting classes and really getting going with the semester!