New City, New Job, New Experiences!

Guten Tag aus Berlin! This post is long overdue and I have much to report but this is literally the first time I have gotten a chance to sit down and compose my thoughts since I arrived in Berlin a week ago. In order to catch you all up, let me give you a quick run down.

I arrived at the airport, physically and emotionally drained, and was met by my school's principle, his wife and my Betreuungslehrerin (also known as a mentor teacher to you non-German speaking folk). They couldn't have been more friendly and were even nice enough to present me with a bag of goodies since they figured I was going to be hungry. In typical German fashion the bag contained cheese, salami, bread, chocolate cookies and a personal-sized bottle of wine. 

I didn't even have time to drink the wine before I set off for Altenberg, a small town outside Cologne, for the Fulbright Orientation Seminar. I must admit, this meeting at first felt a little like freshmen year of college. 140 people are thrown together, assigned to dorm style rooms and given a cafeteria to eat meals in. We also played the name game whenever we encountered someone from an area that we knew someone else. Funnily enough, I met a couple of people who were friends at college with one of my high school friends and even roomed with a girl who was friends from high school with one of my good college friends. I had to come all the way to a small German town six thousand miles from home to realize just how small the world is.

Through the tedious paperwork and teach seminars, I have left Altenberg having met some wonderful people who I believe will become great friends. Tara and Marie are both teaching Cologne, Meredith is in a town on the Danish border where the locals enjoy "flounder kicking" in their free time (I'm not kidding!), Ben is in the town where the 2011 World Ski Jumping Championships will take place and Emily is in the middle of nowhere, also known as Blommburg. We've already made plans to go to Oktoberfest soon and celebrate an American Thanksgiving in Cologne. I can't wait to experience Germany and Europe with some of my new friends!

Finally, today was my first day of school. I will be working in the 5th and 6th level classes at the Schule an der Wuhlheide under the direction of my wonderful Betreuungslehrerin, Frau Artner. 

Schule an der Wuhlheide

"Watch out for children"

Just as they treated me well at the airport, my German hosts treated me very well at school. However, no one showed more excitement for my arrival than my students. I have never seen a classroom of ten year olds more excited than when Frau Artner introduced me as "a real American who will be staying with us all year." Class had to be paused so that they could pepper me with questions ranging from what my favorite color was to if I meet many movie stars in my everyday life. They were all really disappointed when I had to admit that I don't know Miley Cyrus personally but were wowed by the fact that it took me thirteen hours to fly to Germany. At the end of class Frau Artner physically had to separate me from the kids as they kept tugging on my sweater, asking what my favorite food is and if there are as many drugs in Miami as they've seen on CSI: Miami. Finally, they were most confused by the fact that my name, Morgan, is very similar to their word for morning and tomorrow, Morgen. They all found it quite funny that this American girl was named Tomorrow. I hope you have all noticed my clever reference to this in the name of my blog, "Guten Morgan". :)

Now I must depart the blogosphere to continue my apartment hunt which is proving quite difficult. Apparently I am fighting all the German university students for rooms and it's hard to compete against 15,000 strong and  hardy Germans. Good night from Deutschland. I miss you all very much! xoxo