Today marks the first week (plus a day) I’ve been in Braunschweig, and it is pretty unreal to think I’ve been 4000 miles away from home for 8 days now. I arrived in Braunschweig last Tuesday after a long trip on planes and trains. I’ve never traveled alone, so it was a huge learning experience just to get here. I owe some of my success on navigating the airports to a lady I sat next to on the way to Atlanta on my first flight. She had a ton of cool stories to tell about her travels, and she gave me advice on how to find my flights (I had a couple layovers, so I was a little nervous). The only had a slight difficulty when I was half asleep trying to find my train in Hannover, but I was able to meet up with Dr. Hopp in Braunschweig eventually. I was very pleased with my dorm. I have a great view, a kitchen, bathroom and a comfortable bed.
For my first day in the lab, Dr. Hopp introduced me to the lab team, and everyone was very friendly. I went out to the local outdoor campus food stand with a few members of the lab team, and I had a chance to meet a few members of the team a little better. I also got to meet Hannah, who works in the IT department for the lab, fairly well because I had quite a feew problems with getting my internet set up. My first week in the lab generally consisted of setting up my experiment and beginning the recruitment process.
In addition to spending time in the lab, I’ve spent a lot of time exploring Braunschweig and practicing my German. My roommate, Christian, moved in on my second day, and we went out to a few restaurants for breakfast and dinner, and I’ve found that talking with waiters/waitresses and asking Christian questions about what was said has been one good way to practice speaking and understanding German. The first weekend I had here was a long one because Monday was a holiday. Christian actually ended up travelling to Berlin, but my dad was coincidentally in Germany for a business trip so we met up Saturday and I did some exploring with him. Downtown Braunschweig has a really cool mall designed as a castle, and a whole network of shops and restaurants around it. Saturday’s explorations consisted mainly of conquering that area and figuring out good places to eat. On Sunday and Monday I set out to just aimlessly walk around Braunschweig and pretty much just get lost in Braunschweig. I stumbled on a few really large and beautiful parks, as well as a medieval festival going on. I took some amazing pictures and practiced my German with quite a few locals at the festival who were dressed up in their medieval gowns working their stands.
This week, Christian and I figured out the S-Bahn, and I just bought my Monatskarte (month card) on Tuesday. I can truly appreciate German public transportation now after walking 20 minutes to the office or to the mall downtown a few times a day. My next project will be to figure out the Deutsche-Bahn, so I can learn how to travel outside of Braunschweig to other places in Germany.
Overall I am still psyched to be in Germany, and I can’t wait to get my research on its way, and really immerse myself in Germany’s culture. Even though it has only been a week, I think my German is already improving. My conversations are definitely still awkward with people, and I still have to ask very often “Wie bitte?” or “Bitte?” when someone speaks too fast or with phrases I don’t know. That is to be expected though, and I’m excited for my German to improve and to explore Germany in the coming weeks.