First Week

Hallo!

This is my first post since I have first arrived to Germany and Mannheim, and I will have a lot of catching up to do since the past week.

Let me begin with Wednesday, January 8^th. The whole day was a full of nervousness and that butterfly feeling in my stomach. I met up to say good-bye to a few friends, went to stores for last minute shopping, and began gathering all my belongings along with any last minute packing. In the last minutes of being in my home and saying bye to my brothers, it felt like my stomach was slowly inching up my esophagus. With one last check if I have all my documents and a last glance at my house, I was off to JFK. Soon enough, all the anxiety I felt evaporated away, and what was left was calmness. At the airport, I cherished the last moments with my parents and prayed in the chapel for a safe flight. At the security checkpoint, it was the usual chaos and impatience. The lines were long and once I finally went through, I realized that the gate where I had to board was one of the furthest ones back, which meant I had to run.The flight was delayed by about 40 minutes, and when it finally took off I realized I was actually doing what I have preached I would since senior year in high school: studying abroad in Germany.

The flight took about 6 hours (quite short). After claiming my baggage, I took some time so find Wi-Fi and notify people that I reached Germany safely. Next on the list was finding the right train that would take me to Mannheim. Luckily, this was not a problem. There are signs everywhere that practically create a yellow brick road to the train station. As for punctuality, the trains leave on the dot. I took the high-speed train (known as ICE) to Mannheim, which only took 30 minutes. At the main station in Mannheim, I met up with my Buddy, a student and resident of Mannheim that volunteers and is assigned to an International student to help them with the first few days in the city. Together we went to my residence and got that situated, then went to register at the school and open a bank account. Getting a bank account was a bit of a fiasco because two banks said that I could not open an account with them, and another (Deutsche Bank) only gave appointments for the next day. This was unhelpful seeing as I needed a bank account in order to finish registration at the school. However, with my buddy’s help, I managed to get through the first two days more smoothly than if I had been on my own.

Thanks to the events planned by the International Winter Academy (that’s what I’m attending before the actual semester starts to learn the German language and culture), such as Coffee and Tea and a Pub Crawl, I met a bunch of people from all over the world. I also surprised myself by making friends pretty quickly. I’m usually used to this happening after about a week, but it happened the first day. I also managed to get lost (also unlike myself) after the last bar in the Pub Crawl, and got home with my friend Gerard from Barcelona at 3 am.

Classes started this Monday and we were separated into different level classes. They are going quite well, and the additional seminars also help. Also this week we had a Stammtisch, where students of the University gather at a bar and drink and socialize, a tour of Mannheim city center, and today there was a trip to Heidelberg, a beautiful and medieval city.

That is all for now. I will try to write more often. However, my next posts will only be about Mannheim and I will attempt to make a small guide to it through this blog.

Hopefully it will help if you ever find yourself Meandering in Mannheim.

Tchüss!