Week 2, no more complaining about my lack of posts! ;)

Sorry it's been a while since my last post. This past week has been great, I got to walk around the city which everyone says is tiny compared to most in Germany, but compared to Lewisburg its huge! Unfortunately the day we spent wandering around I forgot my camera, so next time I go I'll be sure to take pictures. Paderborn has a beautiful park in the center, comparable to Central Park in NYC, but not quite as large. Paderborn has a nice little river running through it called the Pader. It's the smallest in Germany but it makes the town very nice. The buildings here are amazing, it's so strange to think that most of them are older than our country itself. Before I left I must have underestimated the amount of globalization that has occurred between the countries in the world. As I walked through the city I smelled something very familiar, as soon as I smelt it I thought, "Oh, that smells like Subway." and sure enough as I looked up, there was a large sign for Subway. We have Subway, McDonalds, Burger King, etc. Germany is not so different from the US when it comes to food. This past week was my first week of classes and I've learned a lot. We covered more this week then I did my whole year of German 1 in high school; it's also nice to learn the language from someone who speaks it. In fact, my professor doesn't know that much English. She can communicate fine there are just a few words she doesn't know but it's good because we speak mostly German in the class, and by we I mean she does and we make failed attempts to :-p I'm still not able to hold conversations in German but hopefully that won't be for much longer. I also got a chance to go with a friend, Stefan, to his home in Bühren, a small town about 20 minutes form Paderborn. His family has a horse ranch there for Equestrian riders; it's a small ranch but their growing and even have a professional rider that practices there. Again, I unfortunately didn't take my camera with me. I'm continuing to meet people from all around the world, it's been a great experience already. In my class there is a lady from the UK that teaches English Economics at the university and wants to learn German so she can communicate better with her students. Another man in my class named Abu, is an Indian gentleman who just submitted his thesis for his doctorate in quantum physics (no, I'm not kidding). As far as the culture goes, Germany is very Americanized, the music that plays here is identical to the radio stations in the US and Germans LOVE American films. The people I've met can quote them better than I can. From the people I've been hanging out with it's not strange to see a move 5 or 6 times. In fact one of my friends says that's not a lot, a lot is 20+ times! That's all for now, my posts should be about once or twice a week so don't get mad when their not everyday :-p