Do you know how I know I'm not good with journals? I lost mine within the first 2 days I was here. Yup, already on to my 2nd journal and I haven't even started class yet. (For those of you that have not watched 40 year old virgin, that's what my title references). The title doesn't really have to do anything with what I'm about to write, but I guess when you're not getting much sleep, things like this seem clever. As for the journal that I lost...there wasn't much in it yet; just a few things about my first day here and the flight over. I'll do my best to re-create it here...
The flight over was pretty long, but it's nice to have a microcosm of Miami (or Miami bubble, if you will) to travel with. I met a lot of people going on the same program while we waited for our flight from Chicago to Dusseldorf and more on the bus from Dusseldorf to Luxembourg. The flight was absolutely miserable and many of us ended up watching too many in-flight movies, but the sunrise out of the window over Dublin was absolutely incredible. On the bus ride over, everyone fell asleep since we were absolutely exhausted and it was 8am in Luxembourg. By the time we woke up, we were surprised to find ourselves in Luxembourg since the scenery looked much like that of Germany.
We arrived at the Chateau where our host families were waiting to pick us up and were enveloped in the chaos of collecting our belongings and awkwardly introducing ourselves to our host families. Many families spoke English but others just nodded and smiled as we tried to figure out how to get out of the Chateau parking lot. I am living with another Miami student who took a separate flight from the group, so I met my host mom and we rushed to drop off my belongings before picking up Dottie (the girl I live with) at the airport. The houses are connected to one another and this particular one has a cellar, a 1st floor with a kitchen and living room, 2nd floor with bedrooms, and an attic with 2 rooms and a bathroom. The attic is where Dottie and I are living for the next 4 months and it's nice because it feels like our own apartment. I have my own skylight over my bed (with a pull down shade of course) so it's nice to see the moon or stars at night. Another thing to be grateful for is having internet at the house since a lot of families that host still don't partake in this modern convenience.
Our host mom's name is Hanne and she is definitely overwhelming. Within the first 10 minutes of meeting her I could tell you about her ex-husband, her 3 children, when she had doctors appointments, her mother in Norway, her first love, that she attends a bible study, that the cellar had been leaking, etc. You name it...she told me about it. It's amazing to have a host mom that speaks English so well and that is basically an open book, but it's mildly exhausting trying to keep up with her. None of her children live with her, so we have the house all to ourselves for the time being.
Here's how the next 6 hours went: We went to the supermarket to pick up food for breakfast with Hanne while she tried to quiz us on what streets we turned on so we could get back to buy things later. We talked about going to church with her on Sunday and where her children live in the city. We panicked a bit because Dottie's luggage had been lost but was supposed to arrive at some point that night. We went into Lux City and met Hanne's 18 year old daughter who is still working her summer job (schools here don't start until mid-September, so many people are still on 'holiday'), and she suggested that we go to a chocolate cafe to get some hot chocolate. Hanne speaks German, French, Luxembourgish, English, and Norwegian, and so she picked Norwegian to speak with her daughter the entire time we were at the cafe. The hot chocolate was absolutely amazing though. We then hopped on more buses (all the while being quizzed on where we were and what everything was called) to get back to Hanne's house where she made spaghetti for dinner. The 4 of us ate at her house and then had cake with Hanne's neighbor from across the street. The neighbor then took us to the airport to pick up Dottie's luggage because it had finally arrived and told us about how he used to host Miami students a few years back. We got back to the house and hauled the luggage upstairs and started to unpack. Hanne came upstairs to chat and use the computer and look at our pictures and belongings and lend us a hairdryer, etc. We finally went to sleep sometime around 11.30pm (which would've been 5.30pm Cleveland time).
No comments:
Post a Comment