Hey!

My name is Megan and I am studying for the winter semester here at the Rhein Ahr Campus, and doing a Praktikum with Sprachen Internationales. I'm from the United States, and I lived in Southern California. I have been learning to speak German for 9 months now, it's a pretty tough language but staying in Germany has made it a lot of fun to learn and it's easy to practice everyday.

Germany is so different from California. My first time taking a bus or train was here, and it was sort of intimidating because I had to read the schedules and maps- which seems normal, but in California if you want to go somewhere you type it into a GPS in your car and don't think about it too much. I have a GPS here in Germany but it doesn't help so much if the train is going the wrong way :) I have to say that I have discovered some very nice places while getting lost so it has its advantages.

One funny difference that I found between the Universities here and California is the "academic clapping" I think that's what it is called…where for a job well done everyone knocks on the desk with their hand... I had never heard of it before and it surprised me because I had no idea what everyone was doing. At the end of my first class, the whole class did it and it was such a loud noise I jumped out of my chair a little, but I asked some students and found out that this is clapping university style…which makes sense because you can just use one hand instead of two and it makes a louder noise…so I can see how it works :)

So far I enjoy going to the Rhein and I went hiking in the Siebengebirge mountains a few times. Hiking is one of my favorites and the nature is so green here! I'm mostly used to Palm Springs desert night hiking so it's nice to see really green trees and forests. The food is really different but it's very tasty…I never knew there were so many ways to make potatoes! But they are delicious...

See you around! *academic clapping*

Megan