I made it!

Well, after a long plane ride and a seemingly longer train adventure(I use this term because I had to transfer to three different trains to get here), I finally arrived in Jena at about 3pm on the afternoon of the 27th of September.

The town is about 100,000 people, but has the feel of Bloomington. It lies in between small mountains, and most of the buildings and houses are very old. There is only one "skyscraper" known as the tower, and I´m sure if you look at pictures of Jena on the web you will see it. It has the word Intershop(I think that´s what it is) on the top. It was built a long time ago by the communist party as an example of how amazing and progressive the socialist movement was. There are regulations now that require buildings to fit in with the surrounding environment, and actually, that is what my roommate does-decides whether or not a building permit is granted based on whether or not the proposed building fits in with its surroundings. Mainly offices are located within the tower(including the one I will be working in! I will go in Thursday or Friday of this week, but won´t probably officially start until next Monday), except for the lower floors where there may be shops or something.

I have met a few people here-the crowd is a mix of young and old like Bloomington, because there is a university here. My first night I ate dinner with Ralf, Connie, and Petra. Last night I went to a bbq and met a whole slew of young folks. Tonight I am going to a movie about Hitler-it´s apparently pretty popular here, it was just released about a week or so ago. No subtitles though, 100 percent Deutsch, so I will have to pay extra close attention. Everyone has been helpful and kind so far. Most of the college-aged people can speak or understand at least a little bit of English, but most of the older generation have no knowledge of it. My German is rusty to say the least, but I have been improving little by little. My roommate says that I speak pretty good German and that I learn quickly, so hopefully I´ll have it under my belt in no time. I can understand when spoken to(if it´s not too fast), but since it´s been so long since I´ve spoken, my vocabulary has been flushed down the tubes of forgotten long ago.

Though it´s been mainly overcast since I´ve been here(I´ve only seen the sun shining once, and that was today for about half an hour), I haven´t felt nervous, or sad, or any negative feeling really(except toward the blasted keyboards because they´re set up differently and I have to re-learn how to type!).