Seventh Day In Dortmund

Seventh Day in Dortmund (Friday, Sept. 7th)

Second day of class today!!! It was in a different room from the first day (just to keep things complicated) but I found the new room easily enough. Today we covered new verbs and how to say countries and nationalities. I think my favorite was Chinesisch  (Chinese) you say it key-nay-zissh. Very odd, I had to say it a couple of times to get it down. We didn’t have class for the usual three hours either! Our teacher stopped at 11 and said “we have an announcement for all the classes, meet downstairs in 10 minutes.” Very mysterious. While waiting for them to begin, I got to know a girl in my class, Aida. She was from Barcelona and we raved about Vampire Diaries together. She is also signing up for some of the same classes as me, so I’ll know at least one person!

Once everyone had crammed into one room, they announced we would be having an international breakfast next Friday. Anything involving food immediately got my vote. Students from each country were supposed to group up and agree upon foods to bring that best represented a normal breakfast for them. It turns out there are actually 8 Americans in the program, so we split into groups of 4. The group that I’m in has Christopher, Sarah, and Brittney. We are all from the South and decided on biscuits and gravy, hashbrowns, and maybe scrambled eggs. We wanted to do grits, but decided that anyone who didn’t grow up eating them would probably not like them. And, we had no idea where/if they are sold in Germany.  I am already excited about next week, I love trying new foods and cuisines and there are a lot of countries participating, from Belgium to Turkey. We also have to give a five minute presentation about our country, and since there are two groups of Americans, we decided to each focus on a section of the U.S. We went with the South and the other group is doing the West. It should be a fun time!

After that, we were free for lunch. We trekked over to the Menza and ate in the cafeteria. It was my first time in there and it was somewhat overwhelming. It was a lot bigger than Columbia College’s cafeteria, and there were a lot more choices as well. I had no idea what descriptions of the food said, so I looked for familiar stuff. I ended up with Watermelon and some sort of potato dish. It was actually very good. Maybe sometime I’ll get the courage to go through the pizza line and order in German.

When we got done, we assembled back in the classroom for an academic advising meeting. Dr. Gruenzweig was there and talked about their expectations, course hour conversions, and gave us a course catalog to peruse. I met my adviser, Jessica, who was very helpful, and we set up a meeting for Monday to pick classes. I have a lot to choose from, but with my job and internship I will have to try and restrain myself if I want to have any life at all.

When the meeting was over, I went to the library to check emails and read up on the news. With no Internet, TV, or English newspaper, I was really out of touch with everything going on.

I walked back to my dorm and prepared for a nerdy Friday night.  I had to be up for a class trip at 8 the next morning, so I didn’t really have any plans. I was studying my notes from class and reading a book. You know, your typical wild Friday night. Then, I heard a banging on the door. My roommate was still out of town, so I wasn’t sure what to think. I looked out the peephole and 3 people were standing there, two boys and a girl. I cracked the door, and one of the boys said something excitedly in German that had Damla’s name in it. I just said “Englisch?” It turns out they were having a Mario Kart Party and needed a fourth person. They were friends with Damla and wanted to invite her over. When I explained that she wasn’t there, they invited me to come play.  They were really persistent too. I figured, what the heck, I’m not doing anything, and I love Mario Kart. It was a really fun time. I never really got their names since they were intent on the game, but I actually won a few rounds and had a great time. 

German Word of the Day: Frühstück- it means "breakfast." I enjoy eating all sorts of food for Frühstück.