A Fair-ly Good Time

Please excuse my bizarre and inadequate descriptions.  Carnival rides are hard to put into words!  I finally got pictures to upload... maybe they'll help?

Once I finally reached my bed on that first day, I slept like a log until 8am the following morning, which is quite late for me.  I had previously agreed to meet up with my doubles this day so they could show me around the university a bit.  My original suggestion was to meet up at 9am (not too early), at which they looked askance at one another like "Who is this crazy American who does things at 9am on a holiday?"  We finally settled on a 10am meeting.  One of them texted me and graciously offered to delay our meeting until 1pm so that I would have time to "explore the CDC".  I told her I wouldn't need that much time to do that and, in fact, it took a grand total of about 20 minutes to walk along each hallway, inspect the kitchen for supplies (for instance, there is no microwave on our floor but there is on all the others) and explore the basement, where the laundry room is located.  Contrary to my spoiled Princeton existence, I will actually have to pay 2Euros each for washing and drying here, and it is strongly frowned upon to wash or hang clothes in the rooms.  Fortunately I have enough clothes that I'll probably only have to do laundry 2 or 3 times, and there is a convenient drying room across from the laundry, if you don't mind all your intimates hanging out for everyone to see (since no one goes in the basement to do anything but wash clothes anyway, I don't care - it saves a whole $2.50!).  The University also wasn't particularly spectacular on this slightly gray holiday - it took about 30 minutes for my doubles to show me where the international center (where my German classes are held), the Mensa (dining hall), library, and some of the department buildings were.  It took almost as long to get to the university, since I have the option of taking either one subway and one above-ground train or two above-ground trains to get there (and unlike in Munich last year where I lived and studied relatively in the center of the city, these S-bahn trains only come about every 20 minutes, so if you miss one you have quite a bit of a wait for the next).  It was good to learn the way to the university as I would end up traveling there apart from the group more often than not (the Wi-fi at the university is MUCH more reliable and fast than that at the dorm, so I often get there early in the mornings to send emails or do research).

The first ride we tried: High Velocity

Back at the CDC the other Ruhr Fellows were starting to get up and moving, so I met most of the other members of the group.  They seem like nice people.  There's one girl from Harvard, two from MIT, a bunch from Penn, and one other from Princeton, everything from rising sophomores to recently graduated seniors, all studying various types of engineering disciplines.  They were all going to some sort of carnival where one of the group leaders was working, so I decided to tag along.  It ended up being much further away than I thought and took nearly an hour to get there, but it was worth it.  This festival, or carnival, or fair (I'm still not quite sure what or why it was there) had basically taken over the downtown area of a small village, with fair games booths and food vendors lining the streets and rides parked in the squares.  After wandering for quite a while we found our friend and decided to split up based on the group's interests.  Mine concentrated on the rides so one of the boys and I peeled off the group and headed towards the tallest thing around, a ride where people strapped in to projections on one end of a large rod which then swung the riders up and around in a giant arc, spinning them all the while.  It was a variation on a common fair ride where guests sit at one end of a counterbalanced rod with a fulcrum in the center and pivot around this fulcrum, albeit with a couple additional degrees of freedom.  The ride cost 4 Euros but was definitely worth it.  The forces seemed more extreme than those I had experienced on fair rides in the States, but perhaps that's just because all of the local fairs in Maine use equipment that my mother remembers riding on as a child and I don't get out much past that.  After our feet were finally back on solid ground, we headed off to a roller coaster where each car was sent down the track individually and was free to spin on its base as it traveled along, but the 150-person queue and our fast-approaching meeting deadline deterred us from exploring this ride.  On the way back we found an archery booth for my friend, which I declined to take part in.  He didn't get quite enough points to win anything worthwhile, so he just handed his tickets off to the nearest small child and we proceeded onward.  I was looking for a booth where it seemed I had a good chance of making my investment pay off, and after a while I thought I had found what I was looking for at a can-pyramid station - you know, where you throw the beanbag or ball and try to knock down all the cans within a certain number of tries to get the prize.  I was eyeing the fluffy teddy bears hanging overhead and upon inquiry, found out that I only needed to knock all 10 cans down with three balls in order to win it.  I was confident until I picked up the balls and felt how light they were - the catch was that the throwing implements didn't have enough momentum on their own to be very effective.  My best efforts yielded two cans standing at the end of three tries, and the very friendly wrinkled old vendor bent down and handed me a plush keychain in the shape of a heart and bearing the words "I Love You" as a consolation prize, remarking as he handed it to me, "I think I see a Kevin here for you... or a Marvin, or a Justin perhaps?"  (Sorry, Joe ;]).  I laughed and we moved on.  While the food quality in general was much higher at this event than the normal American fair fare of cotton candy, fried dough and caramel apples, I had a wary eye on my wallet and so resisted the grumblings of my stomach and my curiosity, for the most part.  However, when we passed a chocolatier's booth I could refrain no longer and purchased a strawberry shish-kebab covered in white chocolate.  It was delicious.

The Transformer; I think that smoke is made on purpose?

Arriving at our meeting point quite punctually, we were dismayed to discover that the remainder of the group was a) 5 minutes late, and b) all together.  Apparently we two had been the only ones to hearken to the "split up" idea.  Oh well.  We had been here for a couple of hours at this point and the venue was getting more crowded as evening approached, so we headed back.  Before we reached the bus again, the group leader took a detour towards a ride labeled "The Transformer" which was wrapped in a cloud of (hopefully intentional) smoke.  She convinced four of us to try the contraption and we were soon in line surrounded by enthusiastic young teenage girls, an odd demographic for what the ride seemed to be.  It consisted of six "gondolas" of four seats each evenly spaced around a central wheel and hanging down from it.  At the beginning of the ride, the entire frame raised up and began spinning in two dimensions, so that the riders were simultaneously traveling around the circumference of the circle and spinning around the main crossbeam of the frame.  The music which played on our ride while we were maneuvered into position was the Star Wars Theme, which I found quite appropriate given that I had just watched the films the week before.  The forces on this ride were quite intense, particularly when you ended up at the top of the circle facing straight down!  My harness didn't go quite tight enough to keep me from sliding around during the ride, and I think I would have ended up with some bruises had it lasted a bit longer.  At the end one of the other riders described it as "It feels like my entire body has been squished into my skull."  That was our last ride for the day and we were soon on our way home again.  I was more than ready for bed by 9:30 when we got back to the CDC.

The next day really started the program.  Finally having gotten some rest, I started to notice how far north we are here in Northern Germany.  I woke up to a very bright bedroom and thought that I had overslept, only to look at my phone and find that it was 5:22 in the morning.  (Sunrise here is around 5am whereas the sun doesn't set until almost 10pm... gotta love the summer solstice!)  I was to do this a couple more times before I finally decided that 7:30 was a reasonable time to get up, though my first appointment wasn't until 10:30 at the bank to set up our local accounts for the summer (interesting, since I ran into more than a bit of trouble trying to set up a bank account last summer; every institution we talked to quoted a minimum 6-month stay for eligibility, but I guess when you have someone else paying the bills and pulling the strings...).  We were each given a 600-Euro (around $800) stipend to cover the cost of our plane ticket to and from Germany.  Since I had managed to find such an incredible deal at $300 (it seems even more incredible now that I'm looking at flights home from Scotland which are upwards of $1000 one way!) and wasn't returning to the States at the other end of my summer, this money was basically spending money for me, which is nice considering that my internship is unpaid and I won't have an income again until I return to Princeton in February.  I ambitiously planned to spend only the 600 Euros given me during the summer and save my work-study savings for the semester in Scotland.  The accounts were free for us, excepting a small fee taken out for "death insurance"; in the case that we should expire while in Germany, a sum of up to 150,000 Euros would be paid to ship our remains back to the United States.  A comforting thought (I have no idea why they insisted on it since we'll only be here for 2-3 months, but it amounts to only about 1.50 Euros, so I'm not complaining).  Afterwards we were free until 12:45, so I went into the library and was pleasantly surprised to find that my computer automatically connected to one of the Wi-fi networks, although further observation has revealed that this is not the network the rest of the Ruhr Fellows connect to with their student IDs, so I'm not entirely sure why my computer has the proper credentials for this network.  My only hypothesis is that those I was given last year to connect at TU Clausthal have not yet expired.  Regardless, I enjoy the fast and reliable internet available to me in both the library and the International Center, and these places are where I spend most of my time while on campus.

For the afternoon we had a presentation and tour of the Mechanical Engineering Department at TU Dortmund, accompanied by snacks and drinks as always (I don't know that Germans ever have a meeting without snacks and drinks.  In the least, I've not yet been to one :])  Everything was in English, as it all has to be for this program (six out of the ten students had no experience with German before coming here, as it was not a prerequisite for the program).  Not that I don't like English, but it's a bit frustrating for me to be in Germany and feel like I'm in a big American bubble.  I'm looking forward to my internship where hopefully I can convince more people to speak German to me :)  During the tour, I found it sad that I recognized more of the machines and machining techniques from my research internship of the previous summer than from my Mechanical Engineering education at Princeton (which errs a bit on the side of the theoretical to the expense of the practical, from my perspective).  Nonetheless, it was quite interesting and at the conclusion of the tour, each of the Ruhr Fellows was presented with a small metal trinket.  It was a rhinoceros (Nashorn, or nose-horn in German :]) with wings, made out of six pieces of sheet aluminum which meshed together to form a stand-up figurine.  The flying rhino is the symbol of the city of Dortmund, just as Berlin is the bear or Munich is the lion.  At first I was bewildered by this choice of mascot, as it doesn't seem particularly loveable, or fierce, or courageous, or anything positive.  In fact, rhinos are near-sighted, short-tempered and paranoid, and what was with the wings??  I have since heard that when the city was tasked with finding a mascot, it was upon the occasion of a large concert hall in the city center being finished.  The committee wanted something that would symbolize culture and good listening, so they picked the rhino because it has large ears (my first, and quite natural-seeming question, is why not an elephant or a bat?  They both have much bigger ears... but whatever, I'm just retelling the story).  Because they were afraid of the (quite instinctive) associations of such a choice as fat or slow-moving, they gave it wings to make it lighter.  So now you can find statues of rhinos all over the city, painted in bright colors with the logos of various businesses and associations.  Go figure (I'd add more pictures here if my internet would allow, perhaps I'll upload them to Facebook or something if you're lucky ;]).  The rhino was to become my new traveling companion, replacing the significantly more fragile ceramic rabbits figurine from last summer (which is now permanently missing an ear :P).  The only problem is his propensity to fall apart, so I may end up giving him a duct-tape makeover to solve this problem (the only caveat being, that the only duct tape I have with me is leopard printed... but who said that was a bad thing?  It's not like a flying rhinoceros can get any MORE ridiculous...).  If my luck with the internet holds out, I'll try to include some of his cameos in future posts :)

Dinner that night was going to be an event advertised as "international cooking".  I understood that to mean trying some authentic German cuisine.  What it turned out to be was COOKING some authentic German cuisine.  Just as fun but significantly more interesting, trying to follow the home-made English directions which weren't ALWAYS quite clear...  The curry wurst turned out okay for the most part, and our potato salad wasn't the best I've ever eaten, but it was passable.  The chocolate pudding, for whatever reason, refused to congeal, so we improvised at the last minute and had chocolate sauce for our vanilla ice cream :)  In attendance at the dinner were several other American students in other programs, including 3 or 4 Princetonians.  No one that I knew, but it was an easy thing to connect about, nonetheless.  I also met a very nice Italian girl who spoke decent German but only a little English.  We traded phone numbers and promised to hang out again soon, though that has yet to happen more than a week later :P  The event proved to be more of a good venue to get to know some of the other people in the program rather than food-focused, but that's also a worthy goal.  In particular, I became much closer with Dominique, a tiny, sweet russet-headed girl who just graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering, but looks more like an incoming freshman than a graduated senior.  I discovered that she also has a sweetheart named Joe, who would be coming to visit her at the end of July, so we said I'd have to meet him to compare :)  That's okay, though, I'm happy with my Joe :D

By the time we cleaned up from dinner, it was nearly 9pm, but you wouldn't have known it from looking at the sky - it didn't look later than 6.  We made the very useful discovery that the trains go from running every 20 minutes to every 30 minutes after 8pm, although I haven't yet completely acclimated to this fact and have had to sprint to catch the train on more than one occasion (with approximately a 50% success rate).  I was more than ready for bed, though, after a very full day and a good end to my first "week" of the program.

Beginning the Long Adventure

Well, so much for my blogging streak.  I had a feeling it wouldn't last long...

And so begins a new chapter in my adventure-book.  As you already know, I had delayed my arrival from the expected date of Friday, June 1, for a combination of logistical and personal reasons.  I have many close friends in the Princeton class of 2012, as well as those who have already graduated and would be returning for Reunions weekend.  It was therefore very important to me to stay for the Commencement ceremony, even if it meant I was arriving in Germany nearly a week behind schedule.  Reunions was a whirlwind of activity, as expected, between fulfilling my working obligations to the Department of Public Safety (which provided me housing through the weekend) and saying hello/goodbye to many good friends.  I also managed to squeeze in all three Star Wars movies (the original trilogy, of course) since I had *gasp* not seen them in their entirety and was putting my serious fan boyfriend to shame.  All too soon it was Monday night and we went to the Senior Prom together, an affair which was altogether too loud and chaotic for my tastes.  By a great deal of finagling I had obtained my high school prom gown from home for the occasion, and by some miracle it still fit ;)  Afterwards we were invited to an "after-party" which was really a cover for an engagement celebration as one of our mutual friends proposed to his girlfriend immediately following the prom.  I spent my last night in the United States reflecting on all of the friendships made and the people I would miss the most.  There wasn't too much time for contemplation, though, between packing or storing every last thing, rushing off to the graduation ceremony (where I sat in the back with a graduated friend and strained to catch a glimpse of seniors I knew) and taking final pictures and saying last goodbyes afterwards.  Both sides of my boyfriend's family came to town for his graduation and I had a wonderful lunch with them before his mother, aunt and uncle were supposed to drive me to the airport.  As we were on the way his uncle claimed to need a nap and strongly suggested that Joe drive me alone to the airport - neither of us believed that this was more than an excuse, but rolled our eyes and acquiesced.

Looking back, I laugh because instead of being filled with sweet goodbyes, our conversation revolved around the most practical ways to keep in touch and which books we wanted to read together over the coming months - nothing his relatives would have been embarrassed to hear, but I was still grateful for the opportunity to spend a few more precious minutes with the person who has meant so much to me over the past year.  At the airport he dropped me off at the gate and we shared a final, quick hug before I loaded myself up with my various bags (no simple feat, considering that I had to pack for 7 months spanning three seasons, which translated into a backpack, carry-on suitcase, internal frame pack (bought especially for this trip with a mind to explore the UK on foot) and my monster black suitcase, veteran of many miles.  I waddled my way to the check-in counter and forked over the extra $70 for the additional checked bag (considering the gear I needed/extra space vs. the cost and time - not to mention address uncertainty - of shipping the pack internationally, it seemed worth it, and I'm planning to jettison enough of my stuff to not have to bring 2 checked bags back), then continued considerably more quickly to the security check.  I breezed through without a problem and was soon sitting by my gate with plenty of time until boarding.  I slightly regretted not spending more time with friends before rushing off to the airport, but had any part of the process not gone so smoothly I would have been in a quite different situation, so better safe than sorry, I suppose.  I boarded the plane around 7:45pm, Eastern Standard Time, planning to sleep for the majority of the flight's 6.5=hour duration.  As soon as I saw my seat and the hyperactive four-year-old in the one beside it, I knew those dreams were unrealistic.  Fortunately, I like children.  A lot.

The child was actually quite amazing.  His grandmother, as I presume the wrinkled woman sitting on the other side of him was, spoke only Portuguese as far as I could tell, and didn't seem to understand much English.  The boy, on the other hand, was perfectly bilingual (on a four-year-old level) and I think he entertained me as much as I did him over the long journey.  His favorite games turned out to be "off" (alternately switching on and off the seat-back monitors in front of us), "trapped" (using the flight safety card to 'trap' me in my seat), and insisting that the land before takeoff and after touchdown was "water".  He especially enjoyed a "Cars" coloring book and puzzle, which I also did until he started dropping the pieces of the puzzle off the sides of his tray table and they proved singularly difficult to retrieve.  (I was shocked, however, at how easily he reassembled the remaining pieces of the puzzle - or perhaps it has been too long since I have been around children...)  Eventually he settled down to watch "Toy Story" and I selected "War Horse" from the available entertainment options, a movie I had been looking forward to watching for quite some time.  Though the cinematography was impressive and the storyline (what there was of it) revolved around a horse, which always gets points in my book, the plot was fragmented and made little sense, and overall I found it a quite silly movie.  The little boy eventually fell asleep, of course, but soon became quite agitated at his inability to lie prone in the airplane seat and began thrashing violently, trying to find a comfortable position.  I emphasized with the little guy as I found it difficult to sleep myself, only managing to nap for about 30 minutes around sunrise (still around midnight EST).  Both supper and breakfast were provided, so at least I wasn't too hungry... I saved the plasticware for later, knowing that such things always come in handy.

We landed in Lisbon, Portugal at around 8am local time, which translates to 3am back home.  I blearily wandered around the airport for a few minutes to get the lay of the land before I curled up on a comfy-looking bench and caught up on a few hours of that elusive sleep.  Finally about 90 minutes before my plane was scheduled to leave I awoke and found out the gate, but when I got there the announcement read that the plane was running about 30 minutes late.  I grumpily made my way to a currency exchange office to change the remainder of my change into Euros at an extortionate rate (however, better than I would get in America from all I've read) and proceeded to a souvenir shop to commemorate my brief stay in a new country with a useless bit of kitsch (not completely - I bought a multicolored pen of not-terribly-sturdy construction emblazoned with the Portuguese flag, which will hopefully last longer than I anticipate it to).  I passed the remainder of the excruciatingly-long layover picking at the trail mix I had packed and people-watching, which wasn't so bad.

When I finally boarded this last leg of my flight and was greeted by the obligatory safety briefing first in German, it was like a breath of fresh air.  A smile broke upon my face unbidden - after all of the Portuguese which I couldn't even pretend to understand, to hear something that I could make sense of made me the happiest I had been since I got out of the van at the Newark Airport.  It went beyond that, however.  Call it intellectual stimulation, the exercise of understanding a language which is not my mother tongue, or familiarity, or what have you, but both when I first heard German and when I first stepped out of the plane, it felt strangely like coming home.

I caught another couple of hours of sleep on the plane to Dusseldorf and was pleasantly surprised by yet another meal on the mere 3-hour flight.  I deplaned without any problems and collected my baggage, once again looking quite a sight hauling two suitcases and wearing a backpack on both my back and front.  When I emerged from customs I was pleasantly surprised with a large colorful sign which read "WELCOME ERIN MILLS TO GERMANY" held by two smiling, gorgeous young blonde women.  I strode confidently up to the pair and introduced myself in German, at which they exchanged a startled glance and exclaimed, "We didn't know you spoke German!"  I was just glad they were there to meet me, since they had emailed a couple of weeks before my departure and in all of the hectic busyness I had not found time to reply with my flight information.  We then proceeded to the parking garage where we played Tetris with my bags until we fit the entire mass into the trunk and backseat of a tiny two-door Ford model which I've never seen in the US (something that small would never sell over here).  I clambered in the back with my luggage and for the next hour I exchanged pleasantries and got to know Sara and Daniela, my "Doubles".  These were students at TU Dortmund taking a class on International Industry and Business, with a focus on the United States.  For the second half of their semester, the 22 of them were split up among the 10 Ruhr Fellows and assigned to be their guides to all things German.  My newfound friends also provided me with a gift to welcome me to their country - a heavy bag which contained a cute pillow, gummies (Germans are OBSESSED with gummies, a trend I have yet to pick up), assorted Germany fan paraphernalia (I assured them I supported Germany in the Eurocup, the international soccer championship that has all of the continent up in arms - or at least flags and other extravagant displays of national pride) including a lei, scarf, wristband, and two pins sporting the German black, red and gold.  Finally, rounding out the lot was a bottle of beer - of course.  This is a German fetish which I am much more eager to explore now that I am legal in my own country and have had some opportunities to test my reaction to alcohol in much safer and more controlled situations than a bar in a foreign country. But don't worry - I'm much too paranoid about the potential consequences/value awareness of my surroundings too much to really go crazy here :P

Eventually we arrived in Dortmund and located the Carl-Duisberg Centrum (CDC) which is to be my home for the month of June.  The wonderful girls helped me get settled in my room, even lugging my obscenely heavy bags to the fourth floor (American fifth - Europeans count the ground floor differently) since the elevator was out of order.  They next whisked me off to a supermarket, since the following day was a holiday and nothing would be open for me to obtain food for myself.  Fortunately there are two large grocery stores about three blocks from my dorm - including an Aldi, which I am familiar with from last summer in Clausthal.  Upon discovering that I already had an international cell phone (still the same hideous pink replacement I got after my purse was stolen in Russia in August 2010, if you recall), one of my doubles handed me her old SIM card and we headed to the gas station across the street from the CDC to load it up (Europe is much bigger on pay-as-you=go than America, for which I am grateful).  They then said goodbye after arranging to meet the next morning and show me around the town and the university a bit.  My next priority after my Doubles finally left was to get online and signal my safe arrival to friends and loved ones.  Internet here in the CDC is only available in common rooms, one on each floor, by Ethernet cable (provided, though my gracious boyfriend has lent me one for the year).  This means that my iPod must go back to being a musical entertainment device instead of a mini-computer, which makes things like daily Bible reading a bit more complicated (i.e. I actually have to keep track of what I've read and what to read next myself, just like they did in the old days :P) The network is extremely limited and slows down noticeably with every computer which hooks up - the working limit seems to be three or four laptops, depending on the demand being made by each one.  Sometimes the server goes down altogether suddenly and without explanation.  I was quite disappointed and unsure whether Skype would be ruled out for June, if not the summer, which I dearly hoped wouldn't be the case (speaking to people face-to-face, as it were, does wonders for the homesickness!).

It being already nearly 10pm, I was exhausted so after setting a quick Facebook status (the lazy way to let everyone know at once) I headed back to my room to finally sleep in a bed - and was confronted with a locked door!!  The key we each have at the CDC opens three doors: the outside door, the door to your suite (generally a single and double room with a shared bathroom), and the door to your bedroom.  When I went to the computer room it was only for a few minutes and I left my key on my desk in the room, thinking that my roommates had already left for the night.  One of them must not have left until after I was already in the computer room, and locked the door behind her.  I had no idea when they would get back, but from what I had heard it wouldn't be until quite late.  What was I to do?  I was too exhausted to think straight - after trying the door mindlessly for a minute or two, hoping I had just missed something, I asked a passing student for help.  When she found out that I hadn't met my roommates yet, but thought they had left for the night, she told me that my only recourse was to call the Hausmeister.  I was terrified at this prospect and completely embarrassed that I had been in the house for not two hours before messing something up, but I had no other option.  I timidly crept down to the first floor and rang the bell to the private suite - soon he came to the door and gruffly asked what was the matter.  When I sheepishly explained that I had left my key in the room and now the door was locked, he headed upstairs without another word and unlocked my room with his master key.  He responded to my grateful apologies and exclamations with only a gruff "IMMER Schlussel mitnehmen!" ("ALWAYS bring your key with you!") before heading back downstairs.  My embarrassment soon gave way to relief as I made a beeline for my bed and made a happy end to my first day back in Germany.

Lessons Learned

As promised, before beginning the chronicle of my new adventure, an overview of the wisdom I gained from my last excursion, which will hopefully enlighten this and future journeys.  So, without further ado,

What I Have Learned About Germany (Working List):

• When Germans walk into a room, they greet everybody, whether they know them or not (usually reserved for closer-knit situations such as a church or special interest group, or the workplace)
• Nobody asks "How are you?" - it's a serious question here, not a simple pleasantry (now I could get used to that!)
• Filler phrases differ greatly by region: for example, OK in North Germany is "Alles klar" (all clear) whereas in Bavaria (South Germany) you're more likely to hear "Ach so" (~all right)
• I still haven't gotten the clothing thing down - six dresses is still about four too many for my main uses...
• Germans don't walk past each other without eye contact - you see someone, you say hi (actually, this seems to be true of Europeans, but being a paranoid young American woman/reserved Mainiac/after traveling to Russia where eye contact brings unwanted attention, this is taking a LOT of getting used to...)
• Americans aren't supposed to be able to speak German, at least not well (and not without a good excuse - "Do you have German family?" "Have you lived here?")
• Most everyone understands a little English, even if they're shy to use it - can be very useful in crisis situations
• The whole Du vs. Sie (informal vs. formal "you") dichotomy isn't as big a deal as they made it out to be in my German class.  In informal situations and with people of your own age, it's automatically "du"; "Sie" is generally reserved for official situations (though when meeting new people they occasionally ask before using "du" right away)
• I am a quick learner and a fast worker... but I think these are things I already knew about myself.  Patience isn't exactly one of my strong suits, and I've always been a good mimicker.  This came out most strongly to me last year with square dance and my internship work, respectively...
• You never have as much free time as you think you do, particularly for things like keeping in contact or reading...
• German hospitality tends to be ridiculous and over-the-top by American standards... or maybe it's just the amazing Christian people God keeps placing in my path...
• Germans are racist - or at least, more biased than we in PC America are trained to be, and not nearly as afraid to show it.
• A beer is no big deal in Germany - no Puritanical stigma (and at this point I have even been offered significant amounts of alcohol by fine, upstanding members of the church, something that I don't think would ever happen in America...)

Yes, all very interesting things that almost without fail have stories behind them... but you probably read all about them already in my blog last year.  Now on to fresh adventures... :)