I am now settled into my enormous room in Tübingen, relaxing after two busy busy days. The craziness began when I arrived at the airport to discover that two bags are no longer free on international flights. While Luftansa may pamper you to death with copious amounts of free food and alcohol, they will not allow a second bag onto the plane without you paying 70 dollars. Now that wouldn't have been that bad if I hadn't already known my first bag was overweight. Like, very overweight. It was only three kilos over if you combined it with my first, which was underweight, but ten kilos over on one bag is pretty big. And apparently even if it had only been those three kilos over, I would have had to pay the 150 dollar overweight fee. Having been prepared for maybe a 50-100 dollar overweight fee, I freaked out upon hearing I now owed more than 200 dollars. As I frantically pulled things out of my suitcases, threw things at my dad for him to take home, and tried not to panic about how I was ruining my careful packing organization, the man behind the counter took pity on me and told me he would waive the overweight fee. So after a very stressful 15 minutes, I met up with Catie and we got on the plane.
The plane ride was pretty easy, with tons of movies to choose from, and the copious amount of alcohol as mentioned before. But even with that we were unable to sleep much, so we landed in Frankfurt the next day very tired. Too tired, it turned out, to effectively carry our luggage across the huge platform and down and up two giant staircases in the eight minutes between trains. We got to our second train, saw the conductor watching us, and then as we pushed the button to open the door the train started to move. Angry, hot, and frustrated, we realized the next train to Tübingen wouldn't be coming for half an hour, meaning we would not make it to the housing office that day. Our peer advisor thankfully let us sleep on her floor, meaning we did not have to stay in a hostel.
Today, however, we moved into our rooms. And they are FANTASTIC. This room makes up for my three years of shitty housing luck, no question. The location of our dorm is about a ten minute walk from the Altstadt, or a five minute bus ride. Once we get our bikes in a week or so, it will be like two minutes away (and all flat!). The neighbourhood is incredibly pretty, and there is a Kaufland literally a two minute walk away. What else could I want? Oh I know, a giant, beautiful, new room, with two windows larger than myself.
There is even more space than can be seen in these photos (I didn't want to photograph my half-unpacked suitcases, although you can see bits and pieces). I brought more than 100 photos from home that I am going to use to decorate my room, as well as whatever else I can find.
The most exciting piece of house news, however, is that my kitchen has an oven! I had a sudden panic attack when I remembered that my Wohnheim in Regensburg did not. But this one does does! I'm living with two other people, only one of whom I've met. He's an American who goes to Tufts, and he is also staying here for a year. He and his friends seem very nice.
Today we went and got our keys, moved into our house, got bus passes, opened bank accounts, and got phones, so all in all a very productive day. We finished it with a large dinner with the other people on our program, where I got Käsespätzle and housemade Weissbier. They had a dunkles Weisse that Catie got that was delicious, and something I'd never tried before. After dinner we went to Kaufhaus and got just a little bit of chocolate :) What else could I want from my first day in Germany?
We have another week before our language program starts, so we're expecting to do a lot of exploring. We might also take some day trips with the Baden-Württemberg Ticket, so expect a lot of pretty travel photos soon!
The plane ride was pretty easy, with tons of movies to choose from, and the copious amount of alcohol as mentioned before. But even with that we were unable to sleep much, so we landed in Frankfurt the next day very tired. Too tired, it turned out, to effectively carry our luggage across the huge platform and down and up two giant staircases in the eight minutes between trains. We got to our second train, saw the conductor watching us, and then as we pushed the button to open the door the train started to move. Angry, hot, and frustrated, we realized the next train to Tübingen wouldn't be coming for half an hour, meaning we would not make it to the housing office that day. Our peer advisor thankfully let us sleep on her floor, meaning we did not have to stay in a hostel.
Today, however, we moved into our rooms. And they are FANTASTIC. This room makes up for my three years of shitty housing luck, no question. The location of our dorm is about a ten minute walk from the Altstadt, or a five minute bus ride. Once we get our bikes in a week or so, it will be like two minutes away (and all flat!). The neighbourhood is incredibly pretty, and there is a Kaufland literally a two minute walk away. What else could I want? Oh I know, a giant, beautiful, new room, with two windows larger than myself.
This is the bed from the door
And here is my desk
And, as mentioned, the giant windows
There is even more space than can be seen in these photos (I didn't want to photograph my half-unpacked suitcases, although you can see bits and pieces). I brought more than 100 photos from home that I am going to use to decorate my room, as well as whatever else I can find.
The most exciting piece of house news, however, is that my kitchen has an oven! I had a sudden panic attack when I remembered that my Wohnheim in Regensburg did not. But this one does does! I'm living with two other people, only one of whom I've met. He's an American who goes to Tufts, and he is also staying here for a year. He and his friends seem very nice.
Today we went and got our keys, moved into our house, got bus passes, opened bank accounts, and got phones, so all in all a very productive day. We finished it with a large dinner with the other people on our program, where I got Käsespätzle and housemade Weissbier. They had a dunkles Weisse that Catie got that was delicious, and something I'd never tried before. After dinner we went to Kaufhaus and got just a little bit of chocolate :) What else could I want from my first day in Germany?
We have another week before our language program starts, so we're expecting to do a lot of exploring. We might also take some day trips with the Baden-Württemberg Ticket, so expect a lot of pretty travel photos soon!
