My first week in Bonn...

Well my first week has gone by pretty quickly, even if at moments it seemed to take forever. It has been a good week too, for the most part...minus some very aggravating moments where my bank locked my ATM card and I had no money, to the internet set-up guy in my building standing me up for our meeting to get my internet started.

Tuesday morning I reported to the International Office here at Bonn University where I had to check in. The people there were all very nice, and while they had a lot of information for me, they weren't great with letting me know where I should be and what I should be doing. There was a lot of standing around for a little while. I had to pay a course fee as well as a security deposit and my first month's rent for my dorm, so they sent me trotting off to the bank to withdraw the cash to do so. I was able to withdraw a whole 150 Euro before Bank of America locked up my ATM card. It wouldn't run as a credit either when I got to the Studentenwerk building where I had to pay my rent. Sadly, I had just transfered all the money that had been in my Suntrust bank account into my newer Bank of America account since supposedly BOA is supposed to have a partnership with Deutsche Bank so that I can use their services when abroad. Come to find out, the only thing it does for me is "supposedly" means I can use the Geldautomat (ATM) for free, although service charges for using it have shown up in my account. After running all over the city back and forth between the bank, the Studentenwerk, and the International Office, I was exhausted. But I finally got moved into my dorm that afternoon and promptly took a long nap.

The rest of the week has been easier, thank goodness. I'm all unpacked in my room, and I did a little grocery shopping so I have some stuff to eat. I still need to go to Ikea or some place so that I can get a few more things for my room, like hangers and a little rug (the floor is tile and COLD!).

Orientation classes start on Monday for real. We took a placement test and were separated into our groups by Friday, but all we did were introduction activities. There's about 100 international students here who have come to study at Bonn for either a year or a semester. There people from Japan, China, Taiwan, Turkey, Bulgaria, Norway, Australia, the US and I'm sure many more. I've gotten to know a good amount of people, mostly from the US. There's a group of people from the University of Kansas (I believe, whichever state uni is in/near Topeka?). There's another guy from University of Florida which is the school I'm technically from since I'm doing this program through UF, not UCF. And there's a couple of people in my dorm who I've gotten to know from Ohio State and Washington State.

This morning I went and opened a bank account at Sparkasse so that the Studentenwerk can deduct my monthly rent from that account. I think it will also make life easier if I transfer most of my money there so I can use ATMs anywhere. There's only one Deutsche Bank in the center of Bonn, but there's a Sparkasse on every street corner it seems. It was actually a pretty easy process.

I'm speaking quite a but of German these days, pretty much 24/7. A bunch of us here have made a pact to only speak German to each other since that's the only way we're going to get any better is if we speak it all the time. I'm usually great at understanding what everyone else is saying, and there's only been a few times where I just really had no idea how to say what I was thinking. I'm hoping my intensive language course, which is this orientation course, will help me with vocab and whatnot. Although I'm thinking that after meeting the other students in my class, I want to move up at least a level or two. I'm with a couple of people who can't string a whole correct sentence together 9 out of 10 times. And while I don't want to be snobby or anything, I'm not paying all this money so I can sit in a classroom and help other people. This course is supposed to be preparing me to take classes in the university, and if my German hasn't improved by the end of the month, I'm not going to do as well when I'm confronted with a whole classroom full of only German-speaking people.

Okay well I think that's it for me now. There's a carnival going on called Puetzchens Markt which is Bonn's mini Oktoberfest. (I like how Oktoberfest starts in September and lasts until the beginning of November...) I think I'm going to meet up with some of the people from my dorm and we're going to walk over there. More from me later. I miss you all!

P.S. After a conversation with a British Literature MA student here, I've decided to erradicate (or attempt to) the verb "get" from my vocabulary entirely. You should do the same.