Just Keep Swimming!

Hello friends and family! I hope all is well in your respective locales. Things are moving right along here in D-land. I had my first class yesterday! Yikes. It's called "Der erste Weltkrieg in der deutsche LIteratur" which means roughly "World War I in German Literature." At first I was really nervous, because this class is a smaller class rather than a lecture. But then about 35 people showed up, and I was sitting next to a friendly German student, so I felt a little more excited. Then the professor came in and he seemed pretty cool, and the books he was describing for our class sounded interesting. But then! He assigned a 4-5 page paper over the first book for our next class period. *Sigh* I'm not sure I can read that much and write a paper in German by our next meeting. In English, it obviously wouldn't be a problem, but I haven't taken a German class since first quarter Freshman year, so I think this class might be too hard. Anyway, I also had a floor meeting yesterday, and all my roomies were talking back and forth in German, so I felt pretty overwhelmed with German yesterday. It was kind of a discouraging day, because even though I could understand the professor, I think the course material will be too difficult for me, and when my roommates were speaking, I only picked up about 60% of what they were saying because they talk so quickly. I'm not sweating it too much though; I know it's all just part of the ups and downs of study abroad. The past couple of weeks have been great, so a couple less-than-average days aren't so bad.

Speaking of the past couple of weeks! Munich was great. The weather was wonderful, and Steff's guest family was awesome. We ate dinner with them for four nights I think, and it was great to use our German with Kira's parents. We talked about all sorts of things! On one day during our trip we went to Salzburg in Austria, which I really enjoyed. It was filled with tourists, but it's a really charming city. I definitely recommend visiting. :) Since I've been back, I've just been hanging out with friends, getting to know my roommates better, going on walks in the forest and preparing for classes. That's all I've got for now, but I'll update you on things once I attend my other classes. I miss you all!