Week One: Check!

I've been here already over a week. It has been one loooong week for me. We began classes, I've met the mayor of Pfaffenweiler, I've been to the local street fest, and most importantly, I've already felt an improvement in my German.  While this week has been packed full with many exciting and fun things, it has also been one of the most exhausting weeks of my life. Let me put this into perspective: in America, I am able to function, communicate, and do nearly everything with not really putting for much thought or effort, because I grew up in an English speaking world and it just is normal and instinctive to me. But here, every small detail I have to think about and exert a tremendous effort.  Just trying to understand the workers at the bakery how much I owe can actually be slightly strenuous. (I mean, not really. But more effort than it would take in America.) Also, in my classes at the Sprachlehrinstitut (the language school at the Uni-Freiburg) there are international students from all over the world. Imagine this: it's hard a lot of times for us to understand non-native English speakers when they speak English because of their thick accent and such. Try attempting to understand thick foreign accents of a foreign language but in that foreign language. I mean, for example, an Asian accent in German.  That takes way more effort than understanding Germans speaking sometimes.

Anyway, enough rambling of how strenuous it is, my week has been seriously amazing.  Tuesday was basically a repeat of Monday, except we all also finally figured out a German cell phone. For me personally, I just wanted to do the cheapest option as possible. I literally just bought an inexpensive phone and a SIM card and activated it, coming only to 30 Euros total, with 10 Euros on my Pay-As-You-Go phone.  Remember the really bad phones from around 10 or so years ago? That's this one. But it was cheap and basically only for emergencies. On Tuesday, we also registered for our classes at the Sprachlehrinstitut (SLI), which was exciting.  Before arriving, we all took an online placement-exam.  I got a 53% on that exam and was actually depressed at how low I scored.  But that little dinky score actually placed me in German 10 of 13! I was rather pleased with myself.

On Wednesday, we had our first class.  It began with basically an hour and a half of introductions, talking to each other, getting to learn who is who and so forth.  It was a total of 3 hours, with a half hour break in the middle.  Afterwards, I seriously felt pleased with myself, because it was the first time I felt I effectively communicated for an extended amount of time in German and had no struggle and just spoke fluidly.  After reflecting on it though, the class was actually too easy for me.  The teacher speaks freakishly slow, and even to me her slow speed sounds comical.  It eventually led to me and the other IU students in my class asking what we should do or what she recommended. (She hinted several times that us that we were basically amongst the top, no bragging intended. :D)  And on Friday, she said we should be able to move up to the next level on Monday, which is both exciting and a bit intimidating.

Outside of class, I've been spending time with the other IU students, just getting to know each other and the city better.  There is a LOT of English being spoken with them, and I basically said on Monday, there will be no English from me anymore. I came here to speak German, not English. I hope the others follow suit.

Outside of all of that, last night was the grand opening to the Schneckenfest.  It was similar to the Strassenfest, for those back home in Jasper, but yet not. Imagine just a more fun, better environment, version of the Strassenfest. I mean, for Pete's sake, you can just walk around holding a glass of wine or a beer and it is totally acceptable and normal. Plus the food is better.

Really quick, here are just a few things I'm looking forward to in the next week.

1. Seminars in the afternoon (more classes. I'm planning on attending a short story seminar and a German morphology)
2. Planning my classes for the rest of the semester at Uni-Freiburg
3. No English

Thanks for reading! I hope it wasn't too boring and please share and keep coming back!