Guten tag. I arrived safely in Marburg, Germany, and today is my fourth day. Each weekday, I attend a Speak and Write class, where I attempt to learn some of the German language. I think it's going pretty well. I can now go into a store, say hello, find what I need, pay, and say goodbye. Simple questions will come shortly, I'm sure.
Marburg is absolutely beautiful. It's a city on the side of a hill, so after I've been here for a little while longer, I'm sure that I'll be pretty legitimately buff. So far, my biggest culture shocks have been:
1) The letters on a keyboard are not in the same order that they are in on a US keyboard. That sounds like a little thing, but as I sit here typing and looking at the keyboard for a few seconds to find the next letter, it's an interesting experience.
2) There are bakeries everywhere. It's awesome. I have pretzels all the time. I don't think that I truly appreciated pretzels in the US, but a freshly baked pretzel is very tasty.
3) And because all good points need to come in three's, I'll mention the alphabet. So today, I went grocery shopping and I was shocked to find English Alphabet soup. We know that it is English because we spent quite a long time looking for the ß (We figured that it would be difficult to attach an umlaud, so that was really the only distinguishing letter). It was quite exciting, nonetheless.
My dad wanted me to include the dollar to euro exchange rate each time I write a blog, so today's exchange rate is 1 Euro = 1.35 U.S. dollars (One dollar = 73 cents in euros). Not too bad. I note that a month ago, when Amanda Ingenito got here and was exchanging her money, the dollar was at a relative low, against the Euro, so she lost at least $40.
So, my soon-to-be loyal readers, I will keep finding out new things about Germany and writing to you about them. I did find out, just for Troy and Jes, that my room, the Speak and Write, and the student Mensa make an approximately isoceles triangle.
Tschüss!
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