Sixth Day in Dortmund

Sixth Day in Dortmund (Thursday, Sept. 6th)   

First day of German class!!! I was the first to get there and sat down. Pretty soon, people started filing in. A girl named Bilge from Turkey sat next to me. She was really nice and soft spoken. Eventually our table was full. The other American I had spotted yesterday was there (Nicklaus), an Italian (Davide), and two Taiwanese boys, (Matt and Joy). Our teacher’s name is Özlem. The lack of icebreakers yesterday was made up for today. I think we did at least five. One involved throwing a soccer ball around. Another was sort of a musical chairs type deal. However, I met so many people and actually remember their names now! Yay for friends!

The class is 3 hours long and we covered a lot of information: How to introduce yourself, where you are from, how to tell time, pronunciation, telephone numbers, regular and irregular verbs and all their conjugations, and question words like who what where etc. I have a lot to review tonight! But our teacher presented it in such a way that I don’t feel overwhelmed. There was also a fifteen-minute break around noon, which broke up the monotony.

After class, I had another meeting with Professor Erdogdu. Christopher was also there, as well as the other member of the group, Mike from Canada. Ehh?? He said aboot (about) like five times and I was entertained.

 We then exchanged numbers and emails and set up meeting dates for the future. I filled up a whole notebook page of times and dates and will have to decipher it later. I really need an agenda… In any case, we have to go get our Visas on Monday and submit our CV in German by then. I will definitely be asking Ann-Kathrin for help with that. I think I could translate my name, but that’s about it.

After all my meetings and classes were over, Christopher and I went in to town to gather supplies. We had been trying to get away for the past two days, but they have kept us busy! We immediately went to the main strip of shops. They even have an H&M, which I will be visiting as soon as my job starts. We went to a few stores and then stopped for lunch at a Currywurst stand. It was delicious as usual. The only thing is, they put mayonnaise on their fries, which is kind of peculiar. I much prefer ketchup. We then stopped at the bookstore where our gift cards were from. I bee-lined for the English section and was excited to find a big selection. That store is also on my list to visit after my first paycheck. We made it back to the station and then to our dorms. Now I’m off to study my irregular verbs, I will keep the updates coming!

German word of the day: Fragge- it means question. If you have a fragge, you should just ask!