Eine Woche!

I accidentally locked Urs out of his apartment the night he had karate. He had given me his two keys: one to get into his apartment building and one to get into his apartment. He said he would be back around 10:45 or so, so around 9:30 I put my headphones on and was happily watching a movie when, around 10:30 I heard some strange noise coming from the front door. I leaned over to look at the door, which looked like someone was trying to look through the little part of window at the bottom of the door that was not covered by the curtain. I got up and opened the door to find Urs standing there looking a little exasperated. “I’ve been trying to get in the building for a half hour!” (he said in English). “Didn’t you hear me call or knock?” I felt pretty bad but I didn’t know what the bells sound like or mean. There’s a bell that you ring from the outside of the apartment building that calls the person upstairs so they can push a button to unlock the front door. I thought that was just the phone or something. He was let in by some people who were coming into the building but I didn’t hear him knock because of my headphones. We had talked about how I should get into the building but not how he was going to get in. Oh well, he wasn’t too mad. I owe him one!

On Tuesday I took a train from Kaiserslautern to Landau. At least I managed to do that without getting lost! I chatted with this nice German woman on the first train before I transferred to the train to Landau. My first night was a little chilly because I didn’t figure out how to turn on the heat until the next morning but now I’m toasty warm :-) Yesterday we had a five-hour orientation with some of the ERASMUS students. It was fun to meet the other exchange students but I didn’t understand very much from the orientation. In the evening Katja and I went to the little pub on campus (die Kneipe an der Uni) with some of the other exchange students. It was pretty fun except that I didn’t understand the drink menu. I ordered a cola and enjoyed chatting with some of our new friends. All in all, a really nice night.

Today I met with Jessika, a girl assigned to the three of us (Katja, Kaija, and me) to help us get all our paperwork done. That went pretty well, I just need to go back to a couple more places to finish some stuff up. We also made a stop at Walmart where I spent a bunch of Euros on stuff for my apartment. I got a bunch of dishes/pots/pans, etc... some food, a rug, bedding, and some cleaning supplies. I feel like I’m going through Euros like it’s play money or something, but hopefully I will be reimbursed for most of the stuff. The English department will reimburse us for things that we need for our apartment that we will leave here at the end of the year. That will be really nice!

Tonight I’m mooching off of Kathy’s free wireless internet (she lives in the ESG not the wonheim). Tonight was fun. We just watched a movie and hung out in Kathy’s room. Tomorrow we have an eight hour-long language orientation. Wish me luck!