"Dortmund Doubles"

I received an e-mail from Angela Märtin, a member of staff on the American Studies
Department and the coordinator of the "Dortmund Double“ program, yesterday. Basically "Dortmund Doubles" is a program that Dortmund has for their international students that matches those who are studying abroad there with students from Dortmund who are interested in inter-cultural exchange (i.e. these student either have spent or will spend time aboard in the future). The goal of the program is to help students have a smooth transition onto the campus by showing us around, introducing you to friends, taking to you places off campus, etc. In addition, during the first few weeks (before actual classes start on October 15th) they've organized a lot of common activities for the exchange students (about 2,000 of us from what I understand) such as parties and trips.

My Passport

A few days ago mom complained that I hadn't made any updates in a while. I told her that I hadn't left yet, and therefore had nothing to write about Germany. She suggested I let you all know that I "finally" go my passport. "Finally" is in quotations because of the amount of time it took me to get it. Recently, as I'm sure most of you have heard, the US passport office has been a complete and total mess. Horror stories of people waiting months upon month for thier passports and having to cancel vacations have been in heavy circulation. In fact, it's also been said that even those who shell out the extra cash to have thier passport expedited are still waiting nearly two months. My passport, on the other hand, took six days.

Mom was really upset about this though. According to my inside source (Kori) mom was hoping that my passport wouldn't come in time and that I'd have to stay home. Then she contemplated "losing" it... then she gave it to me in hopes that I would lose it for her, and now, word in the livingroom is that she's crossing her fingers and hoping that I change my mind.

Talk to you all soon,... time left remaining until Germany: 18 days, 8 hours

Campustransport

Translation: Campus Transportation

Wesleyan is a "complete" campus. What I mean to say is that there is no "East Campus" like UNL or a "Nord Campus" and "Sud Campus" like Dortmund has. This makes it extremely convenient for me to get from class to another, as I'm almost positive you could walk from one corner of campus to the other in about five minutes. Dortmund, on the other hand, has two campus that are approximately 1.1 km (0.7 miles) apart. While that's not a terribly far distance, it's still longer than any walk you'll take on Wesleyan's campus. In finding this out, I also found out that Dortmund campus has a monorail system that connects the two campuses.

Below is a picture of the H-bahn route.


The H-Bahn located at the University of Dortmund, Germany, is an automatically controlled suspended monorail system in Germany. It carries more than 5,000 passangers per day. On May 2, 1984 this facility opened as the first system of this kind in Germany. It is integrated into the public transport networks of the city of Dortmund and the tariff union VRR of the Rhein-Ruhr district. The H-Bahn track length is approximately 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) long with two lines operating monday to friday from 6.26 a.m. to 12.00 p.m. Line 1 connects the district of Eichlinghofen with the science park with transfer stations "Campus Süd" and "Do-Universität S" every ten minutes. The coordinated time tables of the monorail and urban railway offer optimal connections to Düsseldorf International Airport and Dortmund central station. Line 2 connects the two university campuses in a five-minute cycle. The main route between "Campus Süd" and the branch to the station "Technologiezentrum" is used by both lines. With a minimum frequency of 40 seconds there are 36 scheduled runs per hour. (Excerpt taken from http://www.h-bahn.info/en/index.php)

I'm going to Dormund

Title Translation: I'm going to Dortmund!

Today I received confirmation of my placement at Universitat Dortmund. The details are still a little sketchy, but right now it's looking like I'll leave on September 8th, 2007 and return July 31st, 2008... nearly eleven full months later.

Dates I know for sure:

• Pre-exchange language courses are from September 10th - October 5th.
• Orientation and Registration are on October 9th.
• Fall classes begin October 15th.
• Fall classes end on February 8th.
• Christmas break is from December 24th - January 6th (this I find odd).
• I have a semester break from February 11th - April 6th (this I love).
• Spring classes begin on April 7th.
• Spring classes end on July 18th.
• The last day I'll have campus housing July 31st.

What I know about housing:

• I'll be living on or near campus.
• I have my own room.
• And I'll be sharing my bathroom with 2-6 people (last year I shared my bathroom with 41 other girls... this'll be a peice of cake... although I've been told by other exchange students that bathrooms/washrooms aren't really seperated by sex in Europe).

Things I really should do:

• Get a passport.
• Get a plane ticket.
• Get a job (where I work more than one day a week).

Where am I going?

Title translation: Where am I going?

In roughly six months I'll be boarding a plane to Germany, where I'll live for nine months.

Concerns I have:

• I've never lived abroad before.
• I'm going entirely by myself (this is both exciting and terrifying).
• I don't know where exactly in Germany I'll be living.
• My German is complete shit.

Why I'm writing a blog:

• I have a large family, and this is so much easier than e-mailing them.
• Personal use (writing material, incase I suffer some sort of short or long term memory loss, for general shits'n'giggles, etc.).