Before traveling to Germany, I spent four nights in Iceland. I had a great trip and learned a lot about Icelandic culture. The culture was very interesting, and the country itself was settled by some Vikings in the early 9th century. The most fascinating part to Iceland, however, is their location on the tectonic plate fault line of the North American Plate and Eurasian Plate. The Icelandic people harvest the energy from the Earth and are able to produce energy. Furthermore, the land there is very different than anything I have ever seen with vast moss covered lava fields.
During my stay, in Iceland, I easily found Wifi hot spots, nearly everyone spoke English, and I was able to use my credit card everywhere. After a great vacation, I hopped on my flight to Frankfurt and took a train the rest of the way to Freiberg.
I came to Germany with an open mind, excitement, and a few expectations. My first expectation was that everyone would speak english and that it would be very common; this was not the case, mainly I am hearing solely German and people seem to be reluctant to let on to their English knowledge until asked. Although sometimes it is difficult to communicate, I find that lots of pointing and smiling is the way to go! My next deceiving expectation was the acceptance of credit cards and availability of Wifi. The only place that I have been able to consistently use my card it the grocery store; other than that, I have been forced to use cash when purchasing anything else (mainly food!!!!). The lack of Wifi was a bit difficult at first because I was unable to contact my family back in the USA for the first couple days, but now I am fairly used to only using internet in the Gastehaus (the building I am living in) or the Goethe Institute (where I am studying). Another aspect I really looked forward to when coming to Germany was the culture and German food; I have yet to find what I am looking for. There seems to be a lot more cultural combinations and diversified food, but perhaps I need to look a little harder for these things. Some German cultural things that I have experienced are hiking, beer, and emphasis on sustainability. I did expect the sustainability, but I was not expecting all of the rules and guidelines that go along with their recycling; for example, in my room alone I have three trash receptacles for the different recyclable materials. It is a well thought out system, and I look forward to learning more about their Earth friendly sustainability. The last expectation that I looked forward to here in Germany, was the clever German engineering. So far I have seen so many different things, and each day I look forward to seeking out new technologies. One such engineered product are the windows. Windows here open many different ways; although they are pretty cool, they lack screens which I may miss when mosquitos start flying into my room at night.
In totality Germany has been amazing thus far, I love the view out my window and all of the things that I’ve been learning about Freiberg.
