A Whole New World

Well, I asked for adventure and that's what I have received.  It has almost been a complete week since I left the US and set out for Germany with 74 other eager young Americans.  After being awake from 34 hours (interspersed with moments of spontaneous sleep), I finally got to have my first nightäs sleep in Germany and the next day me and 13 other CBYXers (AKA PPPlers in Germany) were bused up to Bremen.  When we got off the bus in front of our language school it suddenly hit me what we were all doing.  In a matter of moments, we would be leaving the comfort of our American group and spreading out throughout the city with our new-German speaking host families.  That was pretty intimidating, but also quite exciting.  My host family is really great.  I live with the Ulla and Jörg Englemann in a very nice area of Bremen.  They have very generously open their house to me and seem very interested in helping me improve my German.

Speaking of speaking in German....It's hard.  It really is a sink or swim situation though, and in that sort of pressure-cooker, one learns quickly.  I am stunned by how many new words I'm learning every day and how much more I can already absorb.  I think a huge part of learning a new language is having the courage to speak it, and while I'm here it doesn't matter if I have the courage or not, I kind of have to speak it. Before I came here it was hard to accurately predict what sort of difficulties would arise when dealing with things in another language, but my group is very fortunate to have a really amazing tutor, Anna, and lots of other support from our language school, CASA.

Every day since I've arrived something has happened that makes me laugh or makes me shake my head. Here are a few highlights from the last 6 days.

On Wednesday, after only being in Bremen for 1 day, Bremen flooded.  During the night it rained so hard and so much that the drainage system overflowed and tons of water pooled on the streets and many basements flooded.  Two people in my group were living in their family's basement and had to move because of how much water there was.  My basement is fine, but getting to school that day was interesting.  I was on the tram and already half way to school (the total distance is about 4 miles) when the tram driver made an announcement that I could not understand.  What I did understand, though, was when everyone got off the tram and started walking.  So I did too.  With my broken German I tried to figure out how to get to school and why we could no longer take the tram.  About twenty minutes of walking later I made it to an underpass and immediately understood:  The underpass (through which the trams pass) had about two to three feet of water in it.  The other pedestrians all paused and looked at the water then suddenly took off their shoes, rolled up their pants and waded through the most shallow part.  Seeing no other option, I did the same.  Eventually I made it to school--wet, but on time.

This week I learned that German buses can take vacations--and my bus is.  Bus number 33 is on vacation, so that means I have to get up earlier to catch another one.  Lucky for the buses, they get to take very long vacations.  In fact, they get longer vacations than people--my bus has been on vacation since July 7th and doesn't return to full time work until August 17th.  Then, and only then, will it come at a slightly more convenient time.  On the plus side, though, the public transportation in Bremen is wonderful and I can get almost anywhere I need to go.

My final adventure for the week (thus far!) was being interviewed by Radio Bremen Vier (the name of the station--vier means 4).  My program, organized by the German business GIZ, needs to find host families for the 5 other people that will be in Bremen with me starting in October.  GIZ contacted Bremen Vier about running advertisements, but instead Bremen Vier wanted to do an interview!  Because I will be here the whole year the honor was given to me (a fairly intimidating honor!).  Earlier today I had the interview and was broadcasted around 6pm.  Radio Vier is similar to our Top 40 stations and it was a cool and unique exercise for my German.   My host mother apparently told her sons so they also listened...I was a little embarrassed, but it was also a pretty cool experience.

Every Sunday my Jörg and Ulla have dinner with their two sons, Kai and Sven, both of whom live out of the house.  I have been invited to eat with them and Ulla asked me to help her with the cooking.  Ulla and Jörg also invited me to live with them all year instead of switching host families, so it looks like I know my home for the next 12 months!

Bis später! (See you later, or until later!)

The Bremen Altstadt (Old City)