I guess I'll see if I have time for another quick blog update. I'm still not able to write these from my dorm room yet, since I have yet to get the internet to work properly. But regardless, Starbucks is a cozy place to sit and scour the internet. And a big ol' cup of Earl Grey is less than 2€. Not bad, not bad at all.

The Innenstadt is pretty busy again today. My weekend was good, but I had lots of homework to do. I think our teacher's goal is to drown us in busywork until our German gets so good we can breeze through the worksheets. Like I said in my last post, nothing wrong with that. My German is only going to improve from that! Sometimes you need that sort of thing. I have to admit, though, I find it strange speaking German to the other students. I guess I'd rather speak German to someone who's German (and can therefore correct me properly!). I guess all the practice is good for me, in any case.

The city is starting to fill up with more and more students it appears. Kaiser-Josephstraße (the main street in town, abbreviated KaJo) is packed with kids that appear to be about my age. Its nice to just walk down the street in the afternoon before class and just soak up the German culture. The buildings all look so authentically European, and the people's fashion is, well, different (and probably better) than mine. Not that there is a great deal of culture shock- on the contrary, I knew what to expect coming to Freiburg for the most part. But there are still some really small culture differences that are interesting to observe.

Also, the food is great. My mom expresses concern that I'm not going to eat enough... but that simply won't be the case. There is too much good food in Germany! Strangely enough, most of their food is a germanized form of other cultures food. That means a lot of potatoes and wursts and Dönner Kebab- essentially a gyro, for those of you who don't know what the delicious turkish specialty is. Pizza and sushi are big here too. There is even a spanish restaurant, and I've heard rumors of there being a few mexican restaurants in the vicinity as well.

The people in Freiburg is also an interesting cultural mix. I've heard a lot of different languages. Obviously German is the predominate one, but there has been a decent amount of English and even some asian languages too. It seems people from all over the world can end up in Freiburg, which adds to the charm of the city in my opinion. Its based in German culture, but its flavored with essentially any culture imaginable. And people seem to be very nice, on top of it all. As much as I miss everyone in America, I'm glad I'm doing this program, very glad. It's almost been two weeks, but it's felt like only a couple of days. I'm excited to see what the whole year has in store!

"To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries."

-Aldous Huxley