One Month Reflection

Time to leave Frankfurt. That means that this coming Saturday I will have been in Germany for one month. It has definitely been the hardest month of my life, with plenty of ups and downs and learning experiences as I have truly had to rely only on myself as I begin to navigate and live in this foreign country. It’s only been one month, but I feel like I have been here a year already.

It has been a transition month to ease me into the real deal, which begins when I set foot in Dresden. Although I have physically been in Germany, all my friends thus far are Americans with varying levels of German proficiency, so we all speak English because it is less awkward among us all. I have been speaking more English than I will speak in the next ten months, even though right now I am speaking German more often than I ever have in my life. It is nothing compared to what is coming up, and I can pretty much kiss the English language goodbye starting Saturday, except to communicate with you fine people. “They” say it takes three months to totally acclimate yourself to a language, so I estimate Christmastime will be when I finally speak naturally (or at least more so than now).

There has been a lot of pressure to travel a lot now (I think we have put it on ourselves), while we still have the chance and we’re still not busy, but very few of us have actually gone notable places thus far. At this point my biggest urge was to just get settled and feel comfortable here before I start learning and exploring even more places, so that’s what I did. Who knows – when I get ready to end this year I may look back on this month as a missed opportunity to do more things and go more places- but for now I’m glad I have eased myself into things.

I can navigate the train system, correctly order food in restaurants and chat with store clerks, and function enough to get by. I can understand TV shows and generally process newspapers. After nine years of classroom language instruction my practical everyday skills are lacking according to my standards for myself, which has been a point of frustration for me. This month has also been just more classroom instruction with very little application. I’m tired of grammar worksheets and vocabulary lists, and I’m ready to use what I’m learning in a “real” setting. On the other hand, I am so unbelievably grateful to my beginning German teachers, Frau Howe and Frau Schneider. They got me off to a great start, taught things right the first time, and gave me a strong fundamental knowledge of grammar and usage that have been easy to build upon, especially as we have reviewed concepts this month that I haven’t discussed since I sat in their classes in 7th-10th grade - yet still remember their instruction so strongly.

(by the way I have already noticed that my English grammar is getting screwed up as I think more and more in the German style, so if I have long run-on sentences with verbs in funny places, please pardon me!)

Without a doubt, the hardest thing about this month was the almost cold turkey of communication with the States. I won’t lie, most of this month I was extremely homesick and only mildly content with the state of things, but I know it would have been easier had I had a steady internet connection or any way to have access to people I care about. It was hard not to have constant access to the people I was used to seeing and talking to on a regular basis. Mom asked me the other day if I was getting enough sleep at night (what a mom question to ask hehe), and my response was “I don’t have internet, phone, or cable tv – there’s nothing else better to do!” I loathed the waiting until Monday (or paying at the internet café) to check the Dawgs score, and having little allotments of internet time per day but a huge list of things I needed to do and people to email, and only having Skype access in the café and a crowded lobby and only at certain times of day, and having a cell phone that only calls 2 people (whom I spend all day every day with, so it doesn’t really matter) and can’t make or receive calls to anyone I wanted. I have four friends in this city, and although they are wonderful people, we can only do so much for each other, and only for so long.

For a billion reasons, everything will be better in Dresden. Starting with the most obvious, I will have stable internet. I will be able to settle down in a place and stay there, and know that the friends I make will be around for more than a few weeks – and also I will be in a situation that is conducive to making friends and meeting people, which was so opposite from here. I will have a host counselor and an entire Rotary club that I know will help me and with whom I can’t wait to be involved. I will be able to play my oboe again (hopefully!), and will return to studying music and learning language, instead of just studying language.

It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed my time in Frankfurt – it’s a gorgeous city with a lot of culture and interesting facets, and the wonderful contrast between traditional and modern. It is an international city (25% of the population is not German) and has made for a good transition, and it gave me the experience of getting to know more than one city in my tenure here. I was thrilled to spend the month bonding with other Rotary students, and have that circle to experience these transitions together and compare notes for the future. I don’t even want to think what it would have been like if I had arrived to Germany now, and experienced this rough transition and assimilation period while also starting classes and getting into the university life. As much as I feel like I still have to learn, I know I learned a whole great big bunch this month and I am grateful for this time of cushioning.