Impressions, Revelations, and Logistics

Today I went to pick up my scholarship money and get a cell phone. When I got to the university cash office, they told me they were closed for two days due to renovation, but when they further asked while I was there, they decided to get the stuff from the back to write me my check anyways. I can't tell you how amazed I was. (Especially when later on I talked to a German who had tried to go, and they didn't do the same thing for him.) I'm getting paid in two installments. They write me a check and then I have to take it to the bank to cash out. I found it extremely interesting and kind of unsettling that the university office asked for my id to write me the check, but when I went to the bank and gave the woman the check, she never once asked for id. You might ask who cares, but when someone's requesting 1200 Euro in cash, you might just think to make sure you're giving it to the right person. The great thing about this was that I also managed to pay my rent. I've noticed that everywhere I've gone so far to get things taken care of, even though Germans may not seem very friendly and ask you outright what you want in kind of a harsh tone, they've all known exactly what I was talking about and had everything in writing. It was so nice to get things done easily.

I also have a cell phone now, which makes me feel a bit less estranged. I was able to call my host family and now have numbers of some of the people I've met. Things look promising!!

I'm going to tell you a little about the university where I work and this program I'm helping/part of. The RWTH Aachen University is one of the nine best universities in Germany. It was founded in 1870. It consists of 1/6 international students/staff and is 2/3 male. There are more than 30,000 students. Germany had an intiative in 2005-2011 for universities to achieve a label of excellence and earn grant money, in order to encourage them to become more internationally competitive. The RWTH Aachen won that in 2007 and with some of that money, the UROP program was est. in the International Office. It's an undergraduate research program for American/Canadian students. Many if not all students have scholarships, and that's also where my stipend comes from. There are 36 students in the program this year. About 20 of them have never had German or are beginners. These students have a language course for at least two weeks, more I'm not sure, excursions, and then their research projects, which they start first in two weeks. I'm not actually in the program per say, rather I'm going to be advising them as well as doing anything else I can in the International Office; we'll see what that is. It looks like I might only be working around 20hrs a week, so I'm going to need to get my act together and figure out what to do the rest of the time. I've started looking at fitness classes and such. I should look into getting a library card too.

In terms of realizing differences between Germans and Americans, quite a bit occured to me, but I'm not sure I remember it all. The first is that they are organized about everything and don't like to rush or stress. I started working at about 1:30 for an event at 5. This seemed fine at first, but the stuff we had to do did not take that long: hang up signs, get drinks ready, get name tags ready, etc. It's not so much that we were so far ahead schedule but that the one German girl who works in the office kept saying how if we had started later we wouldn't have been able to do everything and it would have been very rushed. Maybe we would have, but I don't think most of us Americans see that as something unexpected. Germans also have EVERYTHING in writing. Not only did they have a copy of all my paperwork that I came to them about today, but my boss at the IO had the contract for something for our event today. ( maybe like taking tables away or something) And we called to verify that they would be cleaned up tomorrow. The person on the phone said that wasn't what had been agreed upon, and then my boss whipped out the written contract where is said exactly what she had been saying. It was incredible.

I still get the feeling that Germans complain more than Americans or at least more than I do, since I tend not to complain.

One thing that was brought up at the orientation in Frankfurt was that Germans don't jaywalk and it's so true!! We wait at red lights all the time and only at the crosswalk. If someone else walks across, it actually feels kind of awkward.

It's super warm here- high 70's-80's and humid.