Week one is already over...

I arrived in Bonn, Germany on Monday morning. Since then, I have still felt pretty jet lagged. The first two days was very rough, but I have been slowly adjusting to this new sleeping schedule. After arriving at the AIB from the airport, my host mom, Anke, and her daughter, Henrietta, picked up my roommate (Madison) and I. It was a little strange at first, but it has started to become more normal. They have an adorable black cat named Pushkin! The dad, Peter, cooks dinner every night and that is usually the only time we all sit down together and talk. I am usually a pretty picky eater, but everything he has cooked so far has been absolutely amazing. I hope to get to know my host family better over the next 5 weeks because they seem like very nice people.

The first and second days were uneventful, since they consisted of orientations and mostly sleeping. On Wednesday, we started with an introductory German language class, where Mats taught us how to say basic German words and sentences. We started the class with a card game, but the trick was that we couldn’t speak. After reading the instructions to the card game, I recognized that it was a game called Hearts. I play a lot of card games with my family, and this was a game we frequently play. I had won one of the rounds and was told to move to another group. When playing the card game with my new group, I immediately realized that this was not the game my previous group was playing. I felt confused and lost as I tried to understand the rules of how to play. At the end of the exercise, we were told that this was probably how we had been feeling since arriving in a foreign country that does not primarily speak English. And it was true. Since I have been here, I have continuously felt confused and frustrated trying to communicate with anyone other than my classmates. It was reassuring to know that this was a normal feeling to have, and that it will get better with time as I get more comfortable with the environment. After our German class, we went on a group trip to the Haus der Geschichte where Dr. Wasser led an amazing tour on the history of Germany dating from the end of the Second World War to the present.

Today we had our first day of classes, and it was interesting. The lecture Dr. Waltz gave about the physics of sound waves and Dr. Wasser gave on the history of medicine was amazing. I am so excited to go more in depth about medicine. For the two years I have attended A&M, I have mostly only taken basic coursework (chemistry, biology, math, etc). I am excited to finally start learning about things that interest me, and it is even cooler that I get to learn about it in Europe! Tomorrow I leave for Amsterdam, which will be a completely new adventure for me. I will be sure to take lots of pictures to upload to my blog next week! Tschüss!