Fourth Day in Dortmund

Fourth Day in Dortmund (September 4th)

Phew! Another long day. I had to be at the Hauptbahnhof (the main train station) in Dortmund at 9:30. I met up with Christopher and Sarah and we rode in together and found Johanna, who works with the International Office. We would be taking pictures for our Visas today. However, the S1 is not always reliable and the train that was supposed to come in at 9:15 was 20 minutes late.

When everyone finally got together, we walked to the picture studio. It was very crowded in the little studio and I was one of the first to go. I sat and smiled, but the photographer said, “No smiling!” Apparently you are supposed to look serious in your Visa picture. Inevitably, I  looked like a crazy person. I don’t know when I’ll get my Visa, but as soon as I do, I will post it so everyone can see it in all of its glory. When he showed it to me I had to stifle my laughter because I looked so angry in it.

We got done and I waited outside with Sarah for everyone else to get done. We got to talking and she was actually born in Germany. Both of her parents are optometrists who worked for the Army. It was fun getting to know her.

Then we had 30 minutes to walk around. We went to Rossman’s (like a Walgreen’s) because I needed some more supplies, and I needed to break a €50. I, of course, apologized to the cashier for such a big bill ,with my regular, “Entshuldigung.” When we got done, Sarah told me I had been saying excuse me, which is what you use when you want to get someone’s attention, or pass them. So that was great news. Evidently, the phrase I was looking for was “Es tut mir leid” which means “I’m sorry.“ Oh well. I learned something useful today haha.

Then, we walked back to the train station to go back to Dortmund and fill out paperwork for our visas. When we got done with that, I went with another student to find the room where our German class would be held in the morning. Her name was Britney, and she was from Arkansas. It seems that a majority of the American students are from the South.

I had a quick lunch and met back at the U-bahn for a sort of scavenger hunt set up by our German tutors. Each group had to have a fluent speaker since the directions were in German, so I stuck close to Sarah and Christopher. We were joined by three others: Gerig, Uman, and Alex. They were from Hungary, Turkey, and France, respectively. We had to come up with a name for our group. I suggested United Fraturgaray (a combination of all our countries’ names). We got started and had to find various landmarks around Dortmund. One was an old church, another was a monument commemorating freedom, and yet another was a fountain of jugglers and or clowns. No one could figure out what the word was. Gerig mentioned that this was like the plot of one of the Die Hard movies. My ears perked up at the mention of movies, and we were off. We discussed all 5 Die Hard movies (apparently they filmed some of the 5^th one in Hungary!), The Expendables, Air Force One, and the A-Team.

We also talked about our different cuisines. In Hungary, goulash is like the national dish. He also described a favorite dessert, Somloi Galuska, made of raisins, chocolate, rum, and lady fingers. I was ready to trek off to Hungary for some goulash after he was done describing it. I, in turn, told him about Southern cuisine like fried chicken, collard greens, black-eyed peas, and cornbread. It actually made me a little homesick. That’s all the stuff that my mom and dad cooked for me my last week in the U.S. I will have to try and find some cornmeal and make my own cornbread sometime. 

When we finally figured everything out, we met up with everyone at Westfalenpark. It was a beautiful place with diverse flowers and lots of different birds. We even saw some flamingos! 

The tutors also revealed the winners of the scavenger hunt. We came in second and got gift cards to a bookstore, and some mini-gummi bears. Yay team United Fraturgaray!

We walked around for a bit and were then taken up in the TV tower. It’s a little like the space needle in Seattle… maybe not as big. 

 It offered a really nice view of the city (which was larger than I thought!) and it was nice to have a breeze after a lot of walking.

When we got done looking around, the tutors told us we were free to go. Christopher and Sarah had been talking and were both excited about going for something called Spaghetti Ice. It’s ice cream that they push out into spaghetti-like noodles and you can get different types of sauces. Sarah told me that if you got strawberry sauce, it really did look like spaghetti.

I was all for some dessert, so we set off. Unfortunately, we had no idea where to find the stuff. We passed a lot of shops and restaurants, but no ice cream. We finally gave up and went for a beer instead. We found a little bar off the beaten track and pulled up a few chairs. We talked about our cultural differences and what we were studying. I sat next to Alex and got to talk with him for a little bit. He is from a town in central France and getting his masters in Mechanical Engineering. He actually had an internship with Volvo designing trucks for them. It was really interesting to learn about the different engineering opportunities around the world. He told me robotics is a relatively new field, and what his internship in the spring would be based around.

We decided to head back to campus so that we could get some sleep for class the next morning. I’m usually not big on scavenger hunts/ ice breakers, but it was nice getting to know more people and experience a different point of view. I am both excited and nervous about our first German class tomorrow, I have a feeling I am the least experienced speaker here, so we will see how it goes! Schuss!

German word of the day: Kirche- Church. The city of Dortmund contains more than one Kirche, which can make it difficult for scavenger hunts.