A week later.

So I've been here a week already and I can see some improvement in my language skills, but they are all little steps and I seem to expect an instant jump to fluency. I went to a local night school German class last night. All the students are from other countries, but they are taking these classes to get into German schools, or for jobs. They all seem to have been here for a long time since they all sounded fluent to me. My 6 days didn't quite prepare me for the class. I was just kind of thrown into the homework they had done, so I was perpetually anxious whenever they came to me for a response. I'm probably going again tonight, but it will be the same probably. Hopefully it'll be the last time. I'll need to get to a bigger city for a class more my level I think. Hope you guys are all well across the pond. Catch you later.

Jason

I'm Here!

My trip to Germany started at 3:10 on a flight from La Crosse to Chicago and then after a few hour layover I flew from Chicago to Frankfurt. It was about a 9 hour flight from 7:10 to 4:00 AM. Germany is 7 hours ahead so that means I arrived at 11:00. I didn't get much sleep on the plane, but I found all my luggage fine, and I found the train station in the airport too. I got a cool discount card for train tickets for a year now, and I hope I can get some use out of it. The train ride from Frankfurt to Bad Hersfeld (where my host family lives) was a little hectic. I only had 4 minutes to catch a connecting train and I had to hurry all my luggage up and down some stairs to get to another platform, but I made it. When I got to Bad Hersfeld, I had forgotten to bring along my host family's phone number, and I hadn't exchanged any money for a cab, so I just walked from the train station to their house. It was like a mile, and I was lugging around 130 lbs. of luggage. Not much has happened since then. I've been trying to speak as much German as I can, but I'm still a little self conscious. They had a little party for me yesterday for my birthday which was nice. Not much happening today, but I'll keep you guys posted.