The flight was a long one. I watched four movies along the way and sat next to a very nice lady who was traveling to Africa to do some volunteer work. I did not sleep on the plane flight from Portland to Amsterdam which was almost 10 hours. After landing, I got on my second flight to Frankfurt and from there I took a train to Stuttgart and from Stuttgart to Tübingen. It was a very hard last few hours to stay up and my body was feeling it. When I arrived to Tübingen I had no where to stay, no where to go, and no one to help me. It was interesting. After walking for about two hours with all my luggage and getting a few helpful hints from strangers I made it to a hostel. It was a very nice, cheap, friendly hostel and my roommates for the night were very nice. One of them spoke both english and german which made communicating easier.

The next day as I was checking out, I met a very nice Italian girl and her mom who were also doing the program. I spent the day with them walking around the beautiful, small town; killing time till we could check into our rooms. Eventually the time came and we were taken to our rooms along with four or five other people in the program. I am the only one from that section in a different building but I could not be happier. My view is…jaw dropping.

I did not know what to do with my free time so I would do small workouts and read and mess around on the computer. I was very excited for class and nervous at the same time even though actual class did not start until Wednesday. On Tuesday, everyone in the program took a placement test to figure out what class level they would be in. I got into class 5 out of 12. At first I was slightly disappointed but once class started, I was extremely happy with my placement. My teacher is awesome. He is a young, active, music playing guy with so much to teach. The classmates are all nice and friendly. I have never been around so much culture. Making friends was hard at first but eventually I met two guys both named Tom. One from England who is learning german for his girlfriend and the other from Rhode Island who is learning german for fun and school.