Ich spreche Deutsch! Tatsächlich ist das alles, das ich sagen kann. Und ich denke, dass ich das falsch gesagt habe

an american, a russian, a nigerian, and an indian walk into a supermarket in a small town in the middle of Germany....

comic relief aside (doesn´t that sound like the beginning of some bad joke?), my life does feel a bit surreal these days. After spending a bit over a week in copenhagen, I headed down to Kassel germany through a variety of transportation methods. Trains, ferries, cars (hitching), and walking. I arrived at my new home on saturday evening last week.

This week has been filled with....lots of drinking actually. And international meals. I live with an italian, a nigerian, an egyptian, and a german guy. and upstairs from us are 2 more floors, filled with people from russia, ukrain, kyrgistan, malaysia, canada, palestine, brazil, india, and zambia, to name a few. we still are waiting on another person from s. africa, and there is a guy from korea who lives with his family (so he misses all the parties).

but aside from alcohol consumption, soccer games in our backyard, and wondering around this little college town, we´ve already had some fascinating conversation about trade unions, workers, politics, and that global plague we call capitalism. I´m really excited about this semester! I feel like its the first time I´m really going to be engaged in the subject matter. I mean, when I did my bachelors degree, it was in Labor Studies, but it was really a bit of a cake walk. I was already working for union, and aside from some great labor history, I don´t think I learned too much.

I am anticipating a complete language melt down at some point, as my brain will probably explode. I am taking one course in spanish (I have no idea why they offer a course in spanish in germany for english speakers, but I was excited to see it!), and the rest of my classes will be in English. I´ll also have a German course, AND they have portuguese classes. But, the portuguese classes are part of the normal university here, so they are for German students.... as in, my book, and much of the class may be in German. They won´t say "cat = gato", they´ll say "katze = gato". But I´ll see how it goes.... I´ll be in Brasil in February, so it can only help.

Tschüs!