Deutschland Reisefieber: Mein deutsches Leben beginnt

Ok, I did say this post would be in German, but there is no way that my German is at that level yet. As I described in my previous post on Thursday, I travelled Friday and Saturday, relatively uneventfully by car, plane and bus, until I arrived in Hambühren after 33 hours without any sleep. Oh, did I sleep well Saturday night! Sunday, when I was hoping I could sit back and relax, I was whisked away to a dog show in Dresden, four and a half hours from Hambühren. Fire and Ice, one of the two friendly huskies here, won second place in his category, competing with 500 other dogs. Although Ice's victory should of been my only highpoint, I was ecstatic for the nine hours of peaceful napping time I had in the van.

Monday brought even more new experiences to the jet-lagged and utterly confused me. I woke at 6:00am (for those who know me, you know how much I love waking up early...) and got ready for the short walk to the city bus stop to catch bus 3-85 at 7:10. The bus ride took about 15-20 minutes and dropped Marja and me off right in front of the school. The Gymnasium Ernestinum at first gave me a strange impression. I wouldn't describe it at all as run-down, but the outside reminded of a location you would see in a Tony Hawk video game. The school doesn't consist of just one centrally located building, but rather several buildings, all with their own purpose, located in a way that gives the school the feel of some sort of compound. What also struck me was the graffiti all over. Some of the "art" looked like it was some sort of school project, with names neatly signed near the bottom corner, but other designs were clearly not encouraged by the school. This stuff is all over the school, on every possible surface, both high and low. Inside, the school is pleasant - everything that I expected. Unlike my high school, this school has ten possible blocks that they call the German word for hours, "Stunden". Here is a picture of my schedule, my days all start at 7:55, but depending on the day I can get out anywhere from 1:10 to 4:50.

My School Schedule

Going from class to class on my first day, I can't remember how many times I said, "Hallo. Ich bin ein Austauschuler aus Amerika. Ich spreche nur ein bisschen Deutsch." This sentence, of course, means "Hello. I am an exchange student from America. I speak only a little German." The classes are extremely hard to understand for me, but I can already notice I am understanding more and more. Thank goodness I am not in the 12th grade! Oh yeah..just when I thought I was going into my 12th grade year, I was put into the 10th grade, two years back. The sad part is that presumably tomorrow I will be transferring into a lower grade level German class - Perhaps 5th or 6th grade would be appropriate? So far, in the first three days, I have had every class except for physics which I have tomorrow. Everyone I've talked, well, attempted to talk to seem very nice in my class. Unlike in America, a group of students stay together for the most part and take the same classes in the same room. My class has roughly 20 people, but only three other boys; I'm part of the extreme minority! So that's it for now. Here are a few pictures for your viewing enjoyment!