Hallo,
I arrived safely in Germany. I am typing this on a German keyboard and the z and y are switched, sorry if I type things strangely. (strangelz looks like it would mean something totally different like strangles in internet meme lingo)
I sat next to a German lady on the plane from Cleveland to Newark, she was nice and warned me not to eat any of the German bread, chocolate or cheese because I would become addicted and could never leave. She said she purposefully loses ten pounds before visiting her relatives in Germany for 3 weeks. she says she gains about 3-4 pounds each trip. As I will be here longer than 3 weeks, I can expect to become MASSIVE. I sat in Newark for about 5 hours and then got on the plane to Germany. My luggage and I made it safely to Hamburg and Xenia, a coworker, met me at the airport. We stopped by the Landor office to pick up sheets for my bed and I met a few people. Everyone here is super nice, like alarmingly nice. I will have to become a better person. After we picked up the sheets, we went to Malia's, cincinnati co-worker in Hamburg. I tried to stay up for as long as possible, but ended up napping for a long time after my shower. We went to work together this morning and at my desk there was a bunch of stuff: notebook, headphones, maps and travel info about Hamburg, candy and flowers! woooo swag.
This office is very different from Cincinnati as there are roughly 50 people here compared to the 180 ish in the cincy office. I went around and met everyone, which would have taken foreverrrrr in Cincinnati and promptly forgot everyone's name. I will try again tomorrow, or creepily memorize everyone from their work photos online.
I need to work on my German, seeing as I don't really have any skills right now because pretty much everyone in the office speaks German to one another and I feel stupid not being able to contribute. Plus their English is better than mine, so I am pretty much losing all around with regards to languages.
I am looking for apartments and will try to contact some people today/this weekend about seeing their places and meeting them. I feel weird about that too since the ads are in German and I will probably have to respond in English. Some of the ads specify that they would like a German-speaking roommate. I will have to win them over with my charm and ability to recite German numbers.
Tasks to complete soon:
-figure out how to get a phone plan with data so I can use maps and stuff
-get an address
-get a bank account
-get friends
Auf Wiedersehen
(still had to look that up for spelling)
Most common things my co-workers ask me:
ReplyDeleteWhen did you arrive in Germany?
Is this your first time here/in Europe?
When are you here until?
What do you want to see/where do you want to go?
What year are you in school?
How many credit cards do you have?
How much vacation time does your dad get for work?
Figure out short responses to those questions in German and you'll be a hit!