Written: September 3, 2007
So today was the first day of my German class. It’s going to be a very long and boring class. It’s all going to be very easy review for me because we’re just going to be going over the basic grammar of the German language, which is basically what I’ve been doing since I started learning the language. The nice part is that there will also be a lot more oral practice in the class; and of course it is taught by native German speakers. Most of the other students in the class don’t seem to understand German as much as I do, but there are some who do and can speak it better as well. The class consists of a girl from Russia, a girl from England, 2 guys from Turkey, a guy from Brazil and a whole bunch of Americans. Apparently there are other exchange students here as well, but they aren’t taking the course for some reason.
Anyway, today we did basic things like go over what the course was about and fill out forms and such so they can enroll us as students here. Once we get our student IDs, we can get onto the university computers, check out books at the library, etc. Then we had some very basic German lessons; ironically all in German since the teacher doesn’t seem to speak much or any English.
After the class ended at 2, Kayla and I went to go get her bike fixed since her tire seemed to have a hole in it. There is a shop at the university where you just show up and there are students who work there who can help you, but you do all the work yourself using their tools and everything. It doesn’t cost anything. So we went there to take the inner-tube our of her back tire. Well, we found a pretty big hole, so we patched it and as we were putting the tire back on (after putting it back together and filling it with air), we noticed that it was flat again. We then took the tire back off the bike and looked at the inner-tube again. We found another whole in a spot that was unpatchable (right next to the air spout). She then bought another inner-tube from the shop and also a new tire because the actual tire had holes in it as well (she bought a really cheap bike…). All that took about 2 hours.
Then I came back to my room, then went to the grocery store to get dinner for the next few nights. I then went back to my room and ate dinner. I also discovered I could send text messages to cell phones in the US. Just as I discovered that, I ran out of money on my phone, so I had to catch the bus and go downtown to go get more money for my phone. I also got a new network cable because the one I brought was too short to reach the jack from the desk (the desk is on the other side of the room from the jack…that was smart). I then came back and here I’ve been since.
I was finally able to catch the guy who does the Internet stuff in his room and talk to him. It looks like I should have Internet tonight, if not tomorrow for sure.
