It's crazy to think that I've only been in Germany for less than a week. The last time I wrote I was at the Frankfurt Airport, eating a pretzel (eine Brezel) and chatting with some of the other ASSE CBYX students. Eventually our train did come (despite a 35 min. delay), and we were on our way to Düsseldorf! I had been looking forward to seeing the sights along the way during this train ride, but I ended up falling asleep within minutes of sitting down, even before the first stop. Just before we arrived at the Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof, someone woke me up (thankfully!) and we all jumped (okay well not exactly jumped...we each had at least 50+ pounds of luggage to carry) off the train to meet our host families! My wonderful host mom and host sister were there to greet me. It was so fantastic to finally meet them in person after months of emailing and skyping. We quickly went on our way to the parking garage and drove home. Surprisingly, I believe I actually managed to stay awake for the rest of the evening. At about 8:00 I went to bed, and by the next morning I felt almost completely adjusted to the time! Over the weekend I biked around the area, went to see Paper Towns (in German) with my host sister and her friends, walked around downtown Neuss, baked currant/raspberry (Johannisbeeren/Himbeeren) crumble with my host sister, and found a bunch of geocaches with my host family.
Yesterday (Monday) was my first day of language camp! The three week language camp that I am attending in Düsseldorf has about 20 American students, all of whom are from the ASSE CBYX program. I am very happy about the language camp because one, It should be a big help to learn more German before I go to the Gymnasium (high school) for the first time. Two, I get to see many of my friends from the Washington D.C. Orientation a lot more, and three, I will get to see some of the city of Düsseldorf. Yesterday was kind of cold and rainy, so we mostly stayed inside and then we headed out in the afternoon for a short walk around the town. Yesterday evening I decided to go to swim club with my host sister. It was only an hour long, but I was absolutely exhausted by the end. I did enjoy it very much, so I think I'll keep going and hopefully improve by the end of the year. I don't have anything else to do at that time, so why not! Today, one of our language camp teachers wasn't there, and the weather was very nice, so we got to spend a good portion of the afternoon walking around doing a scavenger hunt (all in german of course). It involved reading interpretive signs/maps, locating various objects, and sometimes asking people questions in German. Below are some photos from Düsseldorf today. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment