catch up

so i have finally been able to get internet in my room and have uploaded a few pics to my photo blog which i have a link to right off to the side named pix.

the last two weeks have been pretty crazy trying to get all of the paperwork filled out and starting my german class which is going really well. my living situation is only ok but i can't complain too much, this a picture from my bedroom window. we have a cute little path leading to the front entrance of our building. i live only 10 min. away from campus by foot so everything is pretty close by. we have a few small shops just minutes away which includes a bakery, and grocery store and like a mini mart type of thing. it's really convenient. The s-bahn is on campus which is what i use to get to the middle of the city where we spend most of our time when we aren't in class or taking a tour of something.

the roommate situation could be better but at the same time i've really lucked out. one of my roommates comes from Tennessee and we get along really well. we pretty much do everything together. since our schedules are pretty much the same we always walk everywhere together and chill during our free time. we have quite a few americans here and we group together during lunch and our other free time. another one of my roommates comes from camaroon. she speaks only french and german which has been good because it forces me to speak in german, but her french accent comes through really strong and is really hard to understand most of the time. the other thing is that she has a 1 month old child that lives with use here in our small quarters. the only time that it's really a problem is during the day cuz she cries alot, but she stays pretty quiet during the night. my fourth roommate just arrived two days ago so i haven't had much time to talk to her, but she seems sweet. she comes from spain.

like i said earlier we've been doing a lot of tours lately. our first was a tour of dortmund which i have posted pictures of. we walked to westfahlen park and went up the tower. saw the rosarium and then made our way to the hafen, which is the only port in dortmund. after that we walked all the way into the middle of the city and saw some cool churches, but pics were forbidden so sry. it was a pretty long walk and i didn't enjoy most of it, but it did give me a chance to see different parts of dortmund.

the next tour we did was of the brewery museum. i will post more pix from that as soon as i correlate with one of my friend and get some pix off his camera. it was pretty cool. but the tour was in german and about half way through my brain got too tired to listen. we met some pretty cool workers that kept us laughing i'm pretty sure we got a pic with them but like i said it's on my friends camera.

i've also had the opportunity to go to a soccer game, but it wasn't too exciting. it was an international game so there weren't very many ppl there. but my ticket was basically like a press pass so i was able to go pretty much everywhere in the stadium. it was pretty cool. my friend phillip is going to try and get tickets for the game on tuesday which should be more exciting. i 'll have to let you know. well i have to get going. we are grillin tonight and everyone is suppose to be meeting right now. f

the weekend

so i have gotten through my first weekend in germany. i didn't do much because i'm still feeling or felt the jet lag somewhat, but on friday i watched german tv with my roomates and later another exchange student came to hang out. they have some really weird shows over here and tv is still a little bit hard to understand. though i haven't seen it yet during this visit. i'm looking forward to watching pimp my fahrrad. which is like mtv's version of pimp my car but fahrrad means bicycle. kinda funny, idk. satuday all of the exchange students from amerika and also europe met in a student cafe on campus. i get to meet a few ppl and had a good time. but sunday was the most boring day so far. i know it's not much different from utah, but absolutely nothing is open here on sundays. all there is to do is walk around and sleep. it was kind of nice to have a day off finally, but it went by so slow and since i took so many naps i couldn't sleep very well during the night which sucked because i had a test this morning. all went well though. the test was pretty easy. i just had to introduce someone from another country in front of all the exchange students and then write a short essay. in the end i've been place in the highest level for my intensive german course which will last the next month. pretty proud of that. me and my roomate are the only americans to get into the highest class. we're excited about that. we've been speaking so much german in our dorm and when we visit the city!

...

the days are getting by a little easier now. everyday i speak more and more german and get a little bit more comfortable with it. not that i speak well by any means, but i'm trying and will hopefully learn fast. here they have something called a dortmund double, which are two students that are assigned to one international student to help them around the city and the university. i met mine for the first time yesterday. they were really cool! all of the international students and there doubles met up for italian ice cream yesterday and my doubles and i spoke german the entire time. i found out later that all the other american students had been speaking english the entire time. so i'm proud of myself for stepping out of the box. it feels kinda cool, but hard to explain. my doubles have an extra tv that they are going to let me use which will be cool also. i think it will help with my german.

mmm... the crazyness...

Sry i couldn't write very much the first day. it was a little crazy over here, getting into my dorm and everything else. the flight over went well except for the turbulance and the small space for sitting which limited my sleeping. i was on a total of two planes, the first which was horribly small lasted 2 hr and 40 min and the second though bigger still not much more comfortable for 7 hr and 50 min. had only two hours of darkness and arrived at 7:30 am with a busy day ahead. i got to know the campus just a little and got situated in my room. i've had to rely on my english alot cuz it's the fastest way of communication when there is so much to say, but today i have been speaking quite a bit and did most of the talking to get my library card which i am proud of. the food here is a little interesting. i wouldn't say that it's bad, but it's going to take some getting use to. currently i only have access to the internet through the library, but should be getting it in my dorm room sometime next week so until then i wont be able to post any pictures.

Ich bin endlich in Dortmund!

Hey! just wanted to let you all know that i've arrived! more to come later! tschüss