We arrived in Marburg on Tuesday, October 1st. Our classes for the semester start on Monday, October 14th. But what have we been doing up until now if we didn’t have class???? Read below to find out.

Our first few days here, as discussed briefly in my last post, were focused around University of Marburg’s International Student Orientation. It was mostly paperwork and logistics, but on Wednesday night the student International Club held an “ice breaker” event called “Human Bingo”. Each person was greeted at the door with a string with a heart-shaped piece of paper hanging on it. The heart had a word written on it. My word was “unordentlich” which means “unorganized” (which for the record, I am not). Throughout the night we had to talk to different people while wearing our heart necklaces and find our match. This meant I had to find the person whose heart said “ordentlich” (organized). But that wasn’t all. We also had sheets of paper with empty boxes for people to sign. We all know this ice breaker: one box says e.g. “sign here if you have more than two siblings” and you have to walk around and chat with people to see if they can sign any of your boxes.

It was a fun night! The room was crowded but I met a lot of cool people from Kahzakhstan, Korea, France, Italy and America! After filling my boxes with new names, I found the organized to my unorganized. It happened to be a boy from France. We took a picture together and have not talked since. Nevertheless it was fun to hang out with other students who are away from their home countries and learning to live in Marburg!

A day or two later, the International Club organized an international dinner! Everyone got together in small groups and individuals made dishes of their choice from their home countries. I have been sick with a cold and did not cook as not to contaminate any of the food. However I did get to eat crepes from France, bean stew from Morocco and Polish salad. The event was very chaotic because there were so many students in such a small space, but the idea was nice and the food was tasty.

The days in between orientation and now have been a little hectic. On Tuesday morning we had to wake up early to be at the City Office at 8:30am and register with the city of Marburg. This basically means telling the city where you are going to be living and bringing an ID to prove that you really are who you say you are. We had help from our Resident Director here which made things a lot easier. She is also going to help us get our Visas in a few days! Fun fact- you cannot stay in the EU for more than 90 days without getting a Visa. Up until now we have not needed one, but since our third month in Europe is ending soon, we will need them.

Choosing courses here has honestly not been a smooth process. I have yet to solidify my schedule or get courses approved by my home university. The online course catalog makes sense now, but in the beginning it was very confusing to navigate and most of it is only available in German. My major department in Marburg is slightly different than my major department in the US, so I had to make sure I was still taking classes that I think will fulfill credits for both of my majors and my minor back home. Additionally, the German semester doesn’t end until February 2020. We are leaving Europe at the end of December. Therefore, we had to individually email each professor whose class we wanted to take and ask for permission to finish the course early. Some professors have not replied to me yet, and classes start in 3 days. Because of this, our Resident Director has advised us to just show up to classes we want to take and speak with the professor afterwards. Hopefully this will be successful some if not all of the time!!

This coming week, I have a rough draft schedule of classes I am going to attend. Three I am actually signed up for and the others I am just showing up and hoping for the best. They are all in German so I anticipate having a large headache at the end of each day, but it should be our most immersive experience yet! I can’t wait to have a regular routine again. I’m nervous about the uncertainty of what’s to come, but I know it will all settle down in a week or two.

Until then, thanks for reading 🙂 I will post pictures of Marburg below!!

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