Today was the first day of class. I was petrified. While I did have some German under my belt I was apprehensive about being placed in A1.2, which I thought to be the equivalent of starting a third semester of German. I was pleasantly surprised when I was wrong. There are five students in my class including myself. There is the couple from South Africa, who will be known as Sol and Leo, a man from China, Young and a student from Brazil, Roger, oh and me. Our teacher [it feels weird to use the word now, but technically he's not a professor] is German and has lived in Marburg for the past 20 years and has been teaching for nearly as long. It can be said that I am in great hands. The bus ride to class was long but I entertained myself with cramming the first few chapters of my textbook. I was comforted when I knew most of the things in the book but was upset with my lack of dictionary. It was only later that it occurred to me that the book was entirely in German as to not isolate any one culture. While it means a lack of German to English dictionaries in the back of my book, I can live with it. My tablet now has a [very terrible] offline German to English dictionary to compensate. The classes start at 8.30am [my bus arrives at 8.23am] and ends around 12.40pm. We get two 15 minute breaks in between, which is more than enough time to run to the nearby bakery and pick up a quick snack. Which is what I did on the second break, the first was spent with David and I catching up about our evenings. So after class ended and David gave up on attempting to understand the homework [something about counting hours in the day] we embarked to Rudolph Plaza. The bus ride was fairly uneventful but a bit crowded but we were fine. When we did arrive at our said meeting spot in front of the Welcome Hotel, we began looking for Patrick immediately. No time to waste! Today we were going to Elisabeth's Church. But Patrick hadn't shown up yet. We were concerned that maybe we missed him, maybe he went to a cafe to get something to eat. I sure knew that I was hungry. But a quick search yielded no results. We even waited by the bus stop as bus after bus arrived bringing everyone but Patrick. Finally 45 minutes had passed and David began to debate on what to do. We decided to give him 15 more minutes and then we would leave. My stomach growling I peered through the crowd, trying to find a glimpse of his curly hair, but nothing. Finally I saw him. Yes I was mad, yes I wish we could have called him to ask, but the wave of relief when I finally saw him was the most soothing aloe for the burn in my heart. We asked Patrick where he had been. Turns out he had to retake the placement test after class, he felt incredibly bad that he didn't have a way to tell us so. So the school day ended with David knowing too much and being bumped up a class [sans test], Patrick not knowing enough and me being just right! Basically I'm Goldilocks. We then decided that it was time for food. Despite the many offerings around us, non of us seemed interested in the offerings so we got Gelato instead. When you get it in the cub you get a round sugar cone wafer so it's like having a cone with all the practicality of a cup. We then went to MediaMart which is kind of like best buy without the Blue shirts and khakis and the massively high ceilings. Why did we go to MediaMart you ask? Because I'm an idiot and forgot to bring the correct plug for my convertet. So I needed a new one, or at least an extender that I could plug my converter into because it doesn't fit into the deep round holes of the German plug. I got two. One specifically for USB cable and another universal plug which would allow for my converter to fit into the wall. Thankfully both work wonderfully! Except I think my 3DS charger might have broken or my do because it would not take charge at all. It is sad but David offered to take it to his place and see if it worked off of his converter. my fingers are crossed. After my purchases we realized there was a grocery store downstairs, called Tegut, we decided to check it out. I was overjoyed to find that they had shampoo, conditioner, body soap and lufas. I was thrilled because although I don't mind using my travel sized, I much rather save those in case we go on a weekend trip. After David and i were set we wandered around the store. They sold giant bottles of drinks by the crate and at least half of the store was booze. But it makes sense, when there are markets so close to your house why would you ever get things here? I did pick up some sweets, a kind of cookie bar which consists of two graham cracker like cookies that sandwich a piece of chocolate filled with creme. pretty tasty. David picked up some unrefrigerated microwavable meals. Basically soup and ramen. He also found a world cup scarf with Germany written on it. I looked at him and told him he wasn't allowed to wear it here and he understood. For those who don't know the Germans are very much against Nationalism for obvious reasons. So while you might see American flags everywhere in the US, here its very rare even on government buikdings. As we were checking out I saw them, those sweet toy filled eggs, that are banned from the US because parents can't read the not for children under 3 label, Kinder Eggs. And two kinds to boot! The original Kinder surprise and the half shell creme half shell toy. With that we payed and left. Now we were hungry, so we opted to go to a restaurant that was on the way. I had blindly ordered off the menu hoping for the best. My offline dictionary wasn't very helpful. And the guys got some sort of schnitzel. We delved into each others schools days. Here we found out that Patrick had sat through the entire class not 100% able to keep up. Thus had to retake the test and got bumped down to a lower level. For reference the class he was in was for those who had taken and passed a German competency test aka those who spoke really awesome German and we're basically taming the equivalent of a high school English for grammar and what not. It's cool to know he's so close though! David talked about how his entire class had been here the month before and they weren't quite at the right level he was at so he got bumped up to the higher class. Where he had to go out on a mission to interview people about how many hours a day they spent doing certain task. The food came and it was delicious! So tasty and wonderful. I would like to go back sometime but there are so many places to try. We split up after eating, deciding that there wasn't enough time for us to fully appreciate the church. David came with me to see my house and to watch an Anime show we had downloaded to a USB drive. It was a nice break to be able to cuddle for a bit and just do something that I was familiar with. But the last Bus from Cappel leaves at 7.15 so we didn't get to hang out for too long [we arrived around 5.00, and it takes 10 minutes from station to house plus we had spent some time doing homework]. After he left I grabbed my phone [70% charge! Woot] and went upstairs to enjoy the internet. But like most plans that day it wasn't to be. I'll take this time to quickly introduce the family, as Germans are very private people I will be changing their names. Herr Fritz is the man of the house. He works super close to my school and it very kind. Frau Fritz is bettering her degree in Düsseldorf during the week, so she's only home on weekends. From my introduction and dinner she is also very nice. Kat is turning 16 on Saturday, and is a typical teenager. But patient and very doting on her siblings. she plays the violin beautifully Meg is 12 and full of energy, she reminds be of one Katie's better friends from forever ago. We have bonded the most as I have helped her with math and English homework. She plays the clarinet but doesn't really want to. Sometimes it's good though, if she practiced more and didn't lose heart as mich when she did, she'd improve greatly. Liam is 9 and doesn't know any English, but that hasn't stopped us from enjoying each others conpany. He plays Fußball and I will play in the yard with him. The family also owns one giant black dog, I'm terrible with breeds but she looks like a Labrador, and 4 guinea pigs that Meg is in charge of. They live in the back yard while the dog is in the house. The rest of my day was spent with Meg as I helped with her English assignment. She had to chose her favorite English song [Who Owns My Heart by Miley Cyrus] and answer questions about it in english. I think she did rather well. Then after that we did some practice math problems for her test on Friday. Around 9 we feed the guinea pigs and I retired for the evening to shower, prep for tomorrow and begin writing this. It's gotten. Rather late and I'm afraid I'm dosing off. So Guten Nacht meine Freunden! :]
