So, to pick up from where my last post left off...
I made it successfully to the main train station in Cologne, and after the incident with the dead guy, I overheard a fairly large group of Americans. I tapped on this girl's shoulder and asked if it was the Fulbright group, and it was. Her name was Clair, and she was really nice. I also started talking to a guy from Seattle named Karl who was pretty funny, and was a stark resemblance to someone back home.
It seems like everywhere I go, I see at least 3 people who look exactly like someone back home. Maybe it's just an overactive imagination from so much new stimulation, and the brain is trying to connect it to something familiar...or maybe it's because there are only so many different features/hairstyles/face shapes/colorings and about 6 billion people on the planet that at some point nature just starts repeating itself. But I digress.
Anyway, orientation was a blast, but also reallllly exhausting. There were 140 Americans, 20 Brits, 2 Australians, 2 New Zealanders, and the entire German staff. We stayed in a youth hostel (with surprisingly good food, I might add). My roommate's name was Emily and she was from Boston, also here to teach near Berlin. We really hit it off, so I hope we can get together again at some point.
One bad thing was that we had over 90 women and only 2 showers. I think it's fair to say that despite the few determined to get up at 4:30am and run over there, everyone was coasting out until they get home. Thank God for deodorant and body spray!!
It was great to be around a large group of Americans again. I know I'm here to experience the German culture to the max, but there will be plenty of time for that. In the meantime, I just enjoyed people's eye contact, smiling, and friendliness again (see earlier post). I was soooo excited! I felt like the lost dog getting reunited with his family! Everyone was totally in the "I want to meet you!" mood. The only bad part was that we only had about 3 days to get to know as many people as possible, and with the amount of people reaching 200, that was incredibly overwhelming.
It's all about building up your network, and finding/being part of the Fulbright Family.
A lot of the stuff we did in the workshops seemed a bit redundamt to me, just because they were trying to teach everyone how to be a teacher in 2 days, and I spent the last 4 years studying it. It was great to be prepared, but yeah. However, I did learn some stuff about the German school system I didn't know, and I got to help the others out a bit.
My group and I also taught a lesson on stereotypes. It was the perfect set up because we had both American and British people in our group, so both sides played off each other. Surprisingly, none of the Brits seemed to know about the "bad teeth" stereotype...interesting...
We also learned about what a pain it will be to get through the "beaurocratic red tape" of becoming a (legal) temporary worker/resident of Germany, plus a bunch of other technical stuff I won't bore you about here.
Most people have heard that Germans are incredibly efficient and systematic. Well, orientation was no exception. Everything started at EXACTLY the time it said on the itinerary, and every minute from 6:00am-9:00pm was planned out EXACTLY. Poor us...This American, at least, is not used to that much structure!
After falling asleep several times along the way, yet miraculously finding my way home to Neuenhagen all the way from Cologne, I got home and slept the entire afternoon. I think my body is still recovering.
