Göttingen

Nestled in a valley in southern Lower Saxony and surrounded by forest lies the small city of Göttingen. It is in Göttingen that I am spending my first 8 weeks of studies. I've been here on the Goethe Institute for nearly 3 weeks now. We've been having German classes every day in the afternoons until 6 pm. That was a bit difficult because all of the other classes here met during the mornings, so were were not really able to meet anyone else or do much with our days. I'm excited that our schedule is changing (beginning on Monday) to have classes from mornings until early afternoons. Our class is composed of 16 people from many different countries- one who is a month younger than me and the rest are older, with the oldest having celebrated his 75th birthday 2weeks ago. The others come from Russia, Uzbekestan, Kyrgestan, Iraq, Egypt, Poland, Venezuela, Colombia, Equador, Switzerland, Georgia, Kazakstan, Turkey, Kenya, and one other from the USA. It is quite interesting learning about different people's cultures and customs.

While living at the Goethe Institut I have met several other people who live on my floor. Occasionally we cook and eat together. The most interesting of these experiences has been partaking in the Ramadan meal with my roommate (from Minnesota), and Israeli, and several men from Libya and Morocco. It is really nice to be able to have a diplomatic cultural exchange of beliefs, foods and customs especially between citizens of countries whose governments do not see eye-to-eye.

Sevral times, classmates and I have gone for walks in the forest or in parks together, had picnics or grilled, and we went to a lake last weekend to go swimming. However, I have also spent quite a bit of time indoors as the weather has not been the most convenient for outdoor activities, as it has rained much of the time. Just in the last week the bright green colors of the trees have begun to change colors. Autumn will soon be here.


Goethe Institut