Adventures in Giessen

I'm sure I had some pretty interesting things to write in this post, but sleeping the past 2 days away with the flu and spending hours I'll never get back in bureaucratic waiting rooms has wiped them out of my memory. I'll probably think of them as I start writing this. Enjoy random pictures from around Giessen and whatever streams of consciousness I come up with.

School thoughts:

First off, I'm kind of upset I had to miss school yesterday, but everyone who didn't get sick is probably glad. Last week I led an activity in the practical drama course; which sparks three discoveries.

1. 18/19 year old boys talk much more than girls of the same age.

2. I've got the "mom" look down and can shut them up with the use of it.

3. My mind decided the stress was too much to speak one language properly and reverted to "Denglisch".

All in all, I feel pretty good about it. I just have to remember that all those years of repressed stage fright are bound to cause some sort of issues. I managed to get all of the students to participate in some sort of a constructive manner, which I mark up as a success. 

I'm also starting to figure out who is more likely to volunteer and who needs a little nudge. It's a good group. Just a lot of energy.

Language barriers:

I'm still getting used to faces of sheer terror when people hear me speak English. It's usually followed by a sheepish whisper, to someone who is not me, of "Kann sie Deutsch?", then a sigh of relief when I answer the question in German. I know I shouldn't be surprised by how many people expect me not to know German, but I still am. Good thing I'm here to teach English, right?

Birthdays:

As many (or few) of you may know, I had my birthday on Saturday. Normally I spend my birthdays at work or school, so this was my first free birthday in while. Astrid and Svenja got me a present and made me a cake and made sure I had people to hang out with on Friday.

I went out with Svenja and some of her friends, had "Happy birthday" sung to me two languages, and got caught yawning while out dancing.

Saturday I went to Svenja's volleyball game, ate cake, and just hung out.

Sunday I woke up with the flu....which Astrid had already had. Don't worry, I've already thanked her for that present. It also proves my point of why I don't plan things for my birthday.

Long story short. I spent most of the last 2 days sleeping more than I ever thought humanly possible and I still keep yawning. I've spent so much time sleeping, I hurt from sleeping. The pains of getting old.

View from my room

 Almost not making it to my birthday:

I figured I would give the happy story of my birthday before I give the story of the two days before. Also, I almost forgot about this because I've repressed it already.

One could pretty safely assume (yes I know, that word gets me in trouble) that a bus driver drives the same route quite often and knows when and when not to make a turn. A prime example of when not to: when the road is not a through-way and leads to buildings.

The bus I was on, one of those really long ones with the bendy connector in the middle, made this mistake and then had to BACK DOWN the two way street onto an even busier street. Of course, I had chosen a seat next to the connector and thought I wasn't going to make it to my birthday. After 15 minutes of careful backwards maneuvering and luckily, extremely observant traffic, we were going in the right different.

If that wasn't enough excitement for one day, Astrid had me ride a bike in traffic for the first time in years. I'm not a fan of being in a car, let alone next to a car on what is basically a mobile paperclip. Put me on roads with buses and commuter traffic? You're just asking me to give up and head home while I'm still in one piece. Oh and we were riding bikes to the gym. I counted the unintentional yoga I did to avoid falling on to cars enough of a work out, but apparently that wasn't a correct response.

So I'm quite happy to have seen this birthday.  

Gummi Pug

Thoughts on candy/Oktoberfest everything: 

I've started seeing Christmas things here and there in stores and didn't think much about it, well because this time last year I was elbow-deep in glitter trees. However, I was strolling through Marktplatz and suddenly felt like I was in the wrong city. It had turned into a mini Bavaria for a "Oktoberfest" type festival. It was interesting to walk through. I was stumped by the influx of pretzel shaped objects (buttons, earrings, etc). I guess I get that people eat a lot of pretzels...but does one really need to wear them on their ears? To each his or her own. I found it amusing.
I also found the Gummi Möpse (Gummi Pugs) quite amusing. And tasty. Hence why the picture of the package is actually the picture of an empty package. They remind me more of the pigs from "Angry Birds" than pugs and really aren't sour at all, but okay. Next I have to get a bag of Haribo Schlümpfe (Smirfs) and Vampires. Sometimes its just the little things in life. 

Svenja's Volleyball team

Rodgen

Thoughts on waiting:

I'm also pretty certain purgatory is a government office waiting room. My contact person had wrote down that our meeting was on Friday, which is Tag der Deutschen Einheit and therefore, a holiday. We had scheduled a meeting for Tuesday...

...today...

Cue spending more time waiting.

I should keep track of how much time I spend waiting for things like trains and buses. It could prove interesting.

Alphabet Soup: My first two weeks at Theodor-Heuss Schule

I had intended to make this two separate posts, but the days got away from me. 

Giessen Bahnhof

First of all since I spend so much time at the train station, I just needed to post that the construction from over a year ago is finally finished. Those of us here last year thought it would never be completed, but it's actually quite nice. It was the first thing I noticed when I got off the train from the airport and is the view I see almost every day.

Having no teaching experience, I was quite nervous about being placed at such a large school, but when you see Wonder Woman and Captain American everyday when walking to the school, you can figure it'll be okay. The most daunting part of the German school system is all of the abbreviations. BG, BFS, BG 11 WiLe BiLi, FOS; basically slap some numbers and letters together and you have a pretty decent chance of coming up with an abbreviation that actually stands for something. To me, it's all still Alphabet Soup. I know enough to be in the right room, at the right time, with the right group of people.

The next hardest part is dealing with early mornings. Luckily the bakeries in the train station get this as well.

In lieu of classroom photos, I've posted random ones.

Next on the list of things to conquer - learn names. All the names. So many names and people. It's extremely overwhelming, but luckily by the end of the second week I had learned about half of one class...only 5.5 more classes to go!

This guy almost came home with me

 This last week I started getting more involved in classes. The first week of school is always hectic so it was nice to have things calm down a bit (but not much) and finally have a pretty set schedule. I'll be working with the Darstellendes Spiel (practical drama) class, level 12 English and a bilingual economics course.

Local Wildlife

Some times its simple things like trust falls or passing around different passports and drivers licenses that get students to start talking. They were asking me questions about the drivers licenses in different states and how long it takes to get across the US. And there's nothing quite like hoping your students catch you before you hit the floor, when you already have a fear of falling, to bring you together.

I feel like they're warming up to me. I hope. But yeah, feeling pretty good after this week. I may actually say I'm kind of excited about it, not fully comfortable with it, but excited. All of you who kept telling me I should teach and I never listened - stop laughing.

At the Landes Garten Schau

I get half of a class of students by myself for an exercise next week and I'm slightly terrified. Only slightly. It had to happen at some point. I'll let you know how that goes. All in all the first two weeks were eventful, yet not at the same time.

Schwannteich

The rest of the pictures are from wandering around Giessen. Chrissie (one of my roommates) and I went to the Landes Garten Schau and just looked at cool plants for a while and walked around. Then the last few days Svenja (a roommate from last time) and I wandered around the shopping area which has been turned into a mini Bavaria for October fest. It's odd to see Christmas decorations and stuff for sale right next to blue and white checked Dirndls, pretzel shaped earrings, and Lebkuchen hearts.

Chrissie

Svenja also introduced me to probably the best ice cream in Giessen. It doesn't even have a sign above the door. The only way to find it is to either already know about it or look for the longest line in the summer. 

Basil, Tonka bean. and Peanut Butter Ice Cream

Germany: Week 1

Basically the first week was a whirlwind.  The day after I arrived, I had to hop on a train to Köln to take a bus to Wermelskirchen for orientation and to meet the other 139 Americans who have the same grant. For those of you not familiar with where Wermelskirchen is, don't be ashamed, I still don't rightly know where it is. I do know that it is beautiful there. And peaceful. Peaceful because of a lack of Wi-fi and reception and one would think goes hand in hand with a conference center. However; it gave us more bonding time.

Those four days were also spent wondering where my last piece of luggage was. They gave the usual "We have a a very booked flight today and we will probably have to check some carry-ons". I didn't want to carry my bag around...yeah that was a mistake. It had been straight up left in Newark and due to a phone issue they couldn't reach me when it arrived on the first...even though I left 2 other contact methods. One phone call later and it was in a car on it's way to my apartment.

 Back to being in nowhere.

I kept meeting people going to Berlin, Niedersachen, Sachen, etc - read everywhere but Hessen. I was being to get concerned that no one else had been placed it my state. Luckily I was proven wrong. I actually ran into the other girl living in Giessen while wandering around on a lazy Sunday. Knowing that a lot of us were in the same boat of no teaching experience and that a least a few people were a short train ride away gave me some peace of mind.

 After 4 days of bonding and info on how to fill out (what seems to be endless) paperwork - I made a dash back to Giessen to buy stuff for my room in enough time to catch a train to Wetzlar. There I met my coordinating teacher and saw the school for the first time. This school is like an art gallery. There are either famous works of art or really awesome graffiti on almost every wall. It's three schools connected together so there are around 5000 students on the whole campus.

I spent the weekend roaming around Giessen. I befriended some of the local wildlife and spent a lot of time in the botanical gardens and greenhouses, hence the wealth of plant pictures - trust me - there are many more.

My building