Schon November?

TU Dortmund

I cannot believe it is already November. The last two months have flown by, and I am feeling more and more “German” everyday. What does this mean, you may ask? The little things in life are what make Germans “German” and the rest of us what we are. For example, I bought a little pencil case. I haven’t used one in the US since I was in middle school, however, after noticing that 99.9% of the Germans/Europeans use them I gave in and bought one when I was in the Netherlands. I bought a used bike. That was also a challenge because I had a hard time finding one that would accomodate to my relatively small stature. I’m 161 cm, and German people are generally taller than Americans. I also bought a basket to bring to the grocery store to buy my groceries. I look like the Armenian version of Little Red Riding Hood. I eat so much bread, and it’s amazing. I could probably write the entire year’s blog about food, but I’ll just get too hungry and have to stop.

Uni has been going well. My favorite part is actually being a teacher. I am co-teaching an English course called “Culture and Technology” for students of Logistik and Engineering. I lead two discussion groups every thursday, and each group has about 16 students. The idea of the course is for the students to get a grasp on academic English, through different activities. During class, I only speak in English. I was talking to one of them after class only in German, and he was really impressed with my German ability. It was such a compliment! Otherwise, classes are classes. Dortmund is a really fun city, and I love going to watch the BVB games in local bars. Hopefully I’ll get to go to a game in the stadium soon.

Traveling has also been a pleasure. During my break, I spent about 5 days in the Netherlands. I was able to visit Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and the Hague. I would highly recommend eating Dutch French Fries, they are awesome! Yes, there are people smoking marijuana everywhere. I wasn’t sure what the situation would be like there, but I was really surprised that I saw someone openly smoking a joint. It was especially strange to me, because I worked as a Resident Adviser at my home university, where smoking weed can get you into a lot of trouble. I have had my semester ticket since the beginning of October, and it’s really really incredible. I have been to many cities in NRW, including Duesseldorf, Koeln, Essen, Bochum, and of course Dortmund. It’s a real treat to be able to travel so freely and easily.

Well, this week there is some sort of fall festival in the city center. It’s kind of like a medieval fair, but not as geeky. Hopefully this weekend will be nice. LG aus DORTMUND!