It's real! I'm here!

Tag! Today is Thursday the 16^th, my fourth day in Germany; I have no idea when you all will be reading this because at the moment I am smack dab in the middle of Deustchland, in a little town called Hedersleben. Just imagine an old fashioned movie scene of a classic European small town, and you can begin to get the picture of the little old dwelling. I feel like I’m in a fairy tale as I walk down the cobblestone streets with quirky, colorful houses and people riding by on bikes. I went on a run the other day along a river with big, green trees and rows of cornfields that go on for miles. The only downside is that certain parts smell like cow poop. Ew. I am living in an old monastery with forty-nine other CBYX students. Next week we’ll even be getting a few students from Taiwan I believe, and they will be in my German class.  Our flight was long, and exhausting. There is truly no easy way around that long of a flight.  I’m pretty sure that we traveled for somewhere around 3 days on the way here when you add in all the layovers and the four hour bus ride to Hedersleben from Frankfurt Airport. No fun. Thank god I’m not all alone! So, language camp. I have my own room, and it’s about three times the size of my closet I would say. I lucked out. I have my own bathroom, and even the bed sheets are even my favorite color. I have a pretty view out my window and a window sill perfect for sitting on and looking out. The weather is absolutely fantastic, not too hot, not too cold. The food so far is very “hardy,” mashed potatoes, sausage, bread, and Nutella. Lots of Nutella. You get full quicker, so you just don’t eat as much. I really haven’t seen any overweight people so far in Germany. The desert here is amazing. Any chocolate is top notch, and everyday around two we have tea and cake before the second round of German class. It should be interesting to see how my weight fluctuates in this new environment, haha. It’s also interesting, the lunch here is more like dinner, with mashed potatoes and a meat; and dinner resembles American lunch with cold cut sandwiches filled with meat or cheese usually. At breakfast there are cereals out, meats and cheese, bread, and come kind of fruit always. My German is coming along. Right now things are either really hard or super easy. Since I did a bit of studying over the summer, I already have a lot of the vocabulary down, and the verbs we’ve learned this far have been simple to conjugate. However the other half of the time, like when someone is talking to me or we are watching the news, I can only understand about 25% of what is going on, and the majority of that is from hand gestures and pictures. My German is definitely coming along though; it’s amazing what six hours of class every day plus homework, immersion, and a desire to learn can do. Language is just like a colorful puzzle, all it takes is putting the pieces together and before long you are forming streams of sentences. In a typical day in language camp, we have breakfast at 8:00. Sharp. German’s take their timing very seriously. We have our first class at nine, and at twelve we have lunch. From one to two we have study time where we are usually assigned homework. Then from two to three we have free time, and this far the only really amusing thing we’ve done is walk through town or go to the grocery store. This place is literally vacant. Then we have our second round of class from three to six, the round that you have to power through after a big lunch and all kinds of walking around. Next comes dinner, and then we watch German News every night. So far that has been a little treacherous, and terribly boring, but I’m catching more each day. Then we are off for the night! I usually have homework that I save for after curfew, like the rebel child you all know I am ;). And that’s that! Saturday we are taking a day trip to Leipzig, a major city in Germany, so I’m really looking forward to that! Basically Language Camp in a nutshell.  Oh, and the spiders here. They are insane. I will take a picture of one next time I see one in my room. #Gross. (That one was for Maddie, so I sure hope you read this!) I just can’t help it; it’s so nice out all the time that I want to keep my window open. The consequence is being forced to share my room with all kinds of critters. For now, bis spāter, it’s time I got some sleep. Love you guys!