This week has been my first in the new WG. I have finally moved from the student accommodation into a real apartment! This is something I have been looking forward to since about October 10th. The move-in was pretty hectic: lots of bus rides with obnoxious amounts of baggage, trips to IKEA, and carrying heavy compressed-sawdust IKEA furniture. But I have a bed, a desk, a kitchen with a plethora of spices and a microwave, and wifi. I am a happy girl.
The two girls I am living with are both German. Thus, when I'm here, I speak German. It has been an adjustment to go from speaking barely any German during the day to only speaking that in the apartment (that is, outside of phone calls). Before, the German conversations I'd typically have would go as such:
A: "Hallo"
B: "Moin"
...
A: "Kassenbon?"
B: "Nein, danke"
A: "Schönen Tag noch"
B: "Gleichfalls, tschüss"
And now? Well, today, I tried to explain how Federal Pell grants work, did my best to describe what a townhouse is because I forgot the word (I didn't do very well), and talked about the terms of my lease. These are obviously not things that we learn when we're trying to get our language credit in college. I'm also trying to figure out what a suitable response is to "Naaaah?"when I see someone. So basically these first few weeks or months are going to involve a steep learning curve. But I really think it'll be worth it. Thankfully my roommates are super patient with my terrible speaking ability.
In other news, studying for exams is not going as well as I'd hope, the weather is still cold (we had snow here today! Feels like Michigan.), and two weeks ago I made some Texas chili that was able to make (almost) everyone either 1. sweat or 2. cry. There are also some other Aggies in the country! At least for a while. So I've got to get back to studying so that I can actually see them a bit over the weekend! Tschüüsssssss
