Since the last post, I had the first meeting of my Sprachkurs, the language crash course that will make us ready for German classes. Most of the students in it have been hanging out, enjoying and exploring the town. It’s been good to meet some more people, and have people to go out with. Last night, we sat in a beer garden by the Neckar river, talk, ate, drank, and sat under the trees in the warm night. And the beer–I don’t typically like German style beer, light and somewhat sweet, but this beer is incredible. It goes down so unbelievably smoothly. And it’s affordable, too. We were paying 2 euro for .4 liters–in the States, you’d pay that for a 12 oz of Bud Light.

The weather so far has been very untypically German. After the incessant rains and floods of the past month, it’s been sunny and warm every day we’ve been here, and quite humid as well. Add to that the German dislike for air conditioning, and things can get a bit warm. Everyone is sweaty all the time, but no one really seems to mind. It normally would rain more than it has, but after the floods of the previous weeks, I think they’re happy to have it like this–and I can’t complain about it not raining.

And how is my German coming along? It hasn’t changed much… I can still understand a good bit and make myself understood, but I have a long way to go. Luckily, everywhere that I’ve really needed it (opening a bank account, setting up my cell phone), people have spoken English, but there have definitely been many times that no one around spoke a lick of English. I do find myself remembering words more easily now than before. I’m guessing this stems from “really” using the words, rather than just having to study them out of a book. I was hoping to get some practice in in the dorms, but so far it has been rather empty as class doesn’t actually start for another month. I did meet two other kids from the States living nearby though, so I have something to out there.

Anyways, I’m off for now–gotta get some food for tomorrow before everything shuts down for Sunday.

A beautiful town. I got here around 11AM local time, about 5AM EST. Making it to Tuebingen wasn’t much of a problem–there was a bus right outside of the Stuttgart airport that dropped me off right here. From there, I had to figure out the bus system (took two tries, ended up god-knows-where the first time), and then off to fight through the infamous German bureaucracy to get my room. As for my room, I’d like it if it weren’t so far away. Because all of the busses going there have to go back through the main bus station to get you anywhere of use, it takes me 30-45 minutes to get anyhere from there. And it doesn’t have internet, which could make things interesting. But that’s all OK, I just won’t spend much time there.

So, off for now. I don’t know what the weekend holds, but I’m tempted to go somewhere for a day of it.