Finally here is the second part of my first official post. The second and third week was a little less hectic than the first. I really started understanding where everything was in the town, which is a lot larger than I anticipated. After settling down and exploring Marburg, I started taking day trips to different areas. The school provides us with train tickets that make it free to travel within Hessen. (And with the student ticket grocery stores, some restaurants and museums all offer student discounts.)

A group of students and I traveled to Wartburg which was three train rides away and hiked up to the castle. The castle is where Martin Luther translated the bible into German and hid out from the Romans. We also went to Frankfurt for the day and Heidelberg. Although Frankfurt is not an extremely pretty city, it is fun to walk around and see the historic district. There is music playing everyway and farmers market selling cheese and bratwurst.

Heidelberg also has a castle but it is mostly in runes. Although it is a beautiful, lively city, I am happy just to visit because there is a lot of tourism. The streets were completely filled and I heard at least five different languages while I was there. With tons of shops, art galleries, restaurants, the city is also host to a university.

I have reached the part of the semester where all the course work piles up. I have six hours of classes each day and this includes a four-hour language course and a two-hour cultural course. Every Friday I have a test on the German language and I have four essays for the cultural course spread out until April 15. This is a lot more work than I expected; yet I do appreciate the intensity because I am finally starting to understand German.

Here are a few differences from the United States I noticed in the past few weeks:

            Jay Walking: Germans don’t do it… at least not in Marburg. When waiting at a cross walk, the Germans will wait for the pedestrian light to turn green if there are cars coming or not. We talked with one of my teachers about this and she said that it is true. Whenever she is with Americans she gets left behind on the sidewalk because she waits for the light while the Americans just walk.

            Smoking: I smell like an ashtray and I don’t smoke. People can smoke cigarettes almost anywhere and the people do. All my clothes reek of cigarette smoke constantly. 

Well I have to go catch a train to Amsterdam! 

Tschuss!

Location: Marburg, Germany