Today was a great day in Deutschland! But let me start with yesterday.

I woke up early in anticipation of school, got dressed, and then ate breakfast with Ramona. Then we went together into the school. We met with one of the directors (vice principal?) and he figured out my schedule. I will be taking English, Deutsch, History, Politics, Biology, Chemistry, Sport, Musik, and Mathe. Yesterday I was supposed to begin with three hours of English. I thought that would be a good start, since I can actually speaking English... but it turned out that the classes were canceled because the English teacher was on the class trip with the 13th grade. So we decided that I would just start the next day (today).

Instead of school we went shopping around town. Here´s an interesting difference between grocery stores in Amerika and grocery stores in Deutschland... you know how anoying people leave their grocery carts all over the parking lot and they actually pay someone to go get them? And how the carts are sometimes in the way of parking spots? In Germany the carts are locked together until you put a Euro in them. Then you can take one, and when you return it and lock it to the group once again, you get the Euro back. It´s perfect. Wunderbar. Also, I was reminded of how far in the former East I am when I saw Tempo-Bohnen (tempo beans) in the grocery store... it´s a former product of East Germany and is straight out of the movie Goodbze Lenin! I got really excited and took a photo. When we came back home, I napped and read a children´s book on the history of the world. Later we ate dinner and watched Who wants to be a Millionare and the Cottbus vs Karlruhe fußball game. (I am so happy to finally have ß ö ü and ä on my keyboard!)

So that brings us to today! I started school! It´s kind of odd to have walls, but the school is old and cold enough that it´s not too different fcrm MTA. It´s much, much easier to navigate. Today I only had four 45 minute periods, so it was a good way to ease into it. I first had two periods of biology. Simon, the boy that wrote to me on the German facebook (SchülerVZ), was in the class and I sat with him. He was incredibly welcoming and it was so nice to already have an aquaintance. The class was taking a test for the first period so I just sat quietly, but in the second period there was notes and a lecture about the parts of a cell. Many of the science terms are the same but I should´ve paid better attention in Ms. Mason´s 10th grade bio. While I could follow what we were talking about it was fast and mostly over my head. After class Simon introduced me to his friends Daniela (who is very nice and showed me around and let me sit with her and such also) and Patrick and Max (though I´m probably spelling their names incorrectly). Simon let me put my jacket in his locker cause I didn´t have one yet. I will get my own ´Schrank´tomorrow. I spent the break with them, and then I went together to German class with Daniela and her friend Ewa (like Eva). In German class I sat next to Gustavo, another exchange student. He´s from Argentina and has been here since February, but he didn´t know any German when he came so we´re more or less in the same place, although I´m sure he understands a lot more. He´s hard to understand becasue of his accent but very nice. The teacher gave he and I separate assignments, since we both don´t need grades and obviously can´t keep up with the rest of the class. He worked on grammar and I read a book from the 7th grade class. The teacher is totally crazy but really nice, she made me get up in front of the class and answer questions about myself! But she kept saying ´Kein Angst!´ which means ´No fear!´ Quite funny. she also told me that on Tuesdays we swim for sport class (she´s also the gym teacher) until November. Awesome! So then Ramona picked me up, we went to the small grocery store for a few things, and then we just ate lunch with Thomas (Maria´s boyfriend, he´s an electrician and is working on their garden guest house).

It´s cold and rainy here, and I´m sure it will only get colder. Despite this, next week I will take my bicycle to school...

So three days in I can understand pretty much everything that is said direclty to me, sometimes with a few words looked up or rephrased. It´s pretty fast, too. When other people are having their own conversations and with the teachers I can generally follow but not completely get it. I can understand kid´s shows but not much of regular TV... too fast. Especially news. My speaking still needs a lot of work but I am practicing! In a little while I think we´re going back into town to get a residence permit and go to the bank.

Everything is great! I can´t wait to go back to school tomorrow.

Dani