- beautiful, so so beautifully wonderful and awesome and they smoke and wear scarves
- friends: 95% Spanish, 100% awesome
- German skills? probably worse than before
- Spanish skills? flourishing
- Dune 1, 2, and 3: completed
- classes:
- attendance: perfect (for now)
- topics: fascinating
- teachers: lovely
- comprehension: work-in-progress
- travelling: never enough – Frankfurt, Giessen, Heidelberg, Bamberg tomorrow…more to come
- piercings: new addition to the family J (don’t tell Dad)
- cigarettes: expensive. started rolling my own. (hipster comments will be immediately deleted)
- average consumption of alcohol per week: ...
- overall: incredibly and happily content
2 ½ months of Marburg – advice:
· (re)learn how to balance fun and academia (It’s much, much, much harder than I thought it would be. Every activity, every party, everything that’s not homework is so enticing!!! But, sometimes you’ve got to pull up your panties and remind yourself that you’re here to (1st) to learn and succeed academically and (2nd) to get pissed drunk three or four times a week. Reward yourself, of course, but make sure you achieve something worth rewarding. I would suggest making a daily/weekly schedule. It’s really helpful. ANDDDD!!! Keep a calendar or assignment book for a visual aid/reminder of work that must be completed. Muy importante.)
· introduce yourself to your professors (Tell them if you have a hard time understanding the lectures, and ask for advice on how to succeed. Professors, at least my professors this semester, are really chill and generally understand the challenges that students face while taking classes in a different language.)
· budget (BudgetBudgetBudgetBudgetBudgetBudgetBudgetBudgetBudgetBudgetBudgetBudgetBudgetBudget. It’s amazing how quickly money runs out when you don’t BUDGET YOUR MONTHLY STIPEND.)
· get out ch’ur damn comfort zone and make some friends that actually speak the language (At this point, I am stepping out of my shower-o’-hypocrisy. But, in my defense, I will say that I am meeting German people thanks to the lovely Tjorven Merle. And I often speak German with the people who live on my level. Eventually, I will get up the nerve to have a full conversation with my German classmates. Promise…)
· if possible, cook your own food (Cheaper. Healthier.)
· buy movies/music that are spoken/sung in the language you are trying to learn (I bought three movies that I basically have memorized in English. I watch them on repeat in German and my vocabulary and certain elements of my grammar skills have actually improved a lot. Most of the words I learned concern war and death, but that’s actually surprising applicable to my area of study. J)
Tomorrow, I go to Bamberg. I’m skipping one class in order to do so (shhhhh), but I think it will be worth it. Three days of Bayern beauty. Pictures.pictures.pictures. and still more pictures. So.excited.
I also recently found out about a company/website called Interrail, which offers rail passes to travel around several different countries in Europe for a selected amount of time (five days, one week, two weeks, one month, etc.) The pass that I intend to purchase costs about 400 Euros and includes free rail travel for one month in 30 different countries. Absolutely incredible. If you are studying abroad right now or will be in the future, check it out: http://www.interrailnet.com/
For now, BAMBERG!!!!
More to come later. Proooooomise.
Mburg. This is where I live. (Jealousy is forgiven, if not expected.)
Elisabethkirche. :)
My very first day in Marburg, I met several lovely people as I was signing into the Jugendherberge (Valentina, Auxi, Miguel, and Clement, in that order :), and we traversed Marburg searching for WiFi. We found a way down to the river and, being the child that I am, I took off my shoes and waded around. Whilst I was doing this, Valentina took this lovely photo. She was the first friend I made here. :) I adore her.
The lovely, very blonde and very Greek Valentina next to the equally lovely Auxi (a.k.a. ridiculously sweet and kind, metal-head Spaniard).
And Miguel -- Mozart fanatic and connoisseur of common sense.
Frankfurt skyline!!!
Orientation Group #8: 3 Americans, 2 Spaniards, 1 Hungarian, 1 Pole, 1 Grecian, 1 Romanian, 1 French, 1 Australian, and 2 very amazing, incredibly patient leaders. :) (I still hang out with most of these guys. They are the best.)
Happy Halloween... :)
This is my life.
:)
No comments:
Post a Comment