Do we look American? Germany 2015

WOW! Has it already been 5 days since we first started our departure from America?!

Even though we have been here in Reutlingen, Germany, for four days, our sleep schedules are still off. We are tired  and then when it is bedtime.. wide awake! Of course we are not as tired as the first day.. staying up for 30+ hours is much trickier than it sounds. We were lucky enough to have Dean Johnson here the first day we arrived. He gave us a tour of campus and of the town. After, we went downtown for dinner. I do not think any of us expected what we saw. As Professor H and Josh (our “tour guide/translator”) were running ahead of us trying to make our dinner reservations, we were all in awe. Stopping, taking pictures, posing. Sometimes even in the middle of the road! The roads are so small here compared to USA that I didn’t even realize we were in the middle of them (oops!). However, we have been much better with being aware of our surroundings since that first day (don’t worry mom and dad!). The city, for lack of a better word, is so cute! There is a long road which no cars are allowed down. Located along this road are many shops and cafes. The buildings are all different colors, and all the roofs are very triangular and pointy. Such a fun town to walk around.

The following day we got a walking tour of the city and downtown. Southern Germany is absolutely beautiful. There are many parks to walk through and within the parks there are darling little cafes to eat at. There is even a golf course at one of the parks but you stand up and play so it’s similar to pool! One of the parks has a life size chess board with pieces; I promise I will play a game of chess on that before I leave. On the walk, we also saw a stunning view of the town. Every building has a red roof, and in the distance we could see Marienkurche (St. Mary’s Church downtown). The church’s oldest parts date back to the 12th century, but unfortunately the interior was destroyed in a fire and has since then been restored. While on our walk through downtown Reutlingen, we got to walk down the narrowest Straße (street) in the world! The street is in the Guiness book of world records, how neat for us to see!

While on our walk, we got our first “engineering” tour. We walked by an old mill, and an extremely friendly old man generously welcomed us into his shop and showed us around. It was an old water powered mill from the 1700s, still working today! I really love how the town supports local shops like this one. The man’s English was nearly perfect too, so we really got a good grasp on what was happening and how everything worked. Everybody really enjoyed the little detour.

On Sonntag (Sunday), nothing is open except some places to eat. All the grocery stores and clothing stores are closed. Quite different than America. The eight of us went to Penny Mart on Samstag (Saturday) to get food so we could cook dinner Sonntag. When Keith offered to cook us stir fry, we were all quite nervous. The dinner turned out DELICIOUS, much to our surprise. Ha ha, just kidding, we all knew you’d do a great job, Keith! Thank you! It was really a fun time for all of us to gather in the same dorm and eat together. It’s really been a fun few days of bonding and getting to know everyone. I can tell the next few weeks are going to be a blast!

On a side note, all the natives here have been extremely patient and friendly with us. Some speak English, some do not! It is always a fun interaction with everyone because they keep speaking German with us and we keep speaking English with them. Some ask where we are from, and when we say Chicago they get excited. They are all so patient with us too, especially since there are 9 of us who do not speak the language. We all travel in a heard. The ladies in the bakery are especially fun to speak with. We point to what we would like and they get it for us. They laugh, we laugh. We don’t know what we are saying to each other. One thing I’ve learned is that laughter is the same in all languages.

What a beautiful time we are having here.