Week #1 and #2 in Marburg

Week #1 - Marburg

So on Monday I arrived and a rep from IUSP (that's what my exchange program is called) picked us up at the Bahnhof (train station). Then we went to a general orientation, did all the registering etc and got shown to our rooms! I live in a big student village type thing, all the buildings have 4 floors and every single room and floor has the exact same layout!

My home for the next few months!

My first week was just mainly all organising stuff - I had to get my visa, sign papers etc. In the afternoons I went walking with some people I met in my group. We went to the old part of the city where there's a massive church on top of a hill.

The view from the top...

We also went walking in the forest...was pretty cool, we found some small castle ruins!

Cooking our first college dinner. My favourite!

Walking around Marburg...

This little cafe decorated their ceiling for Easter!

Week #2 - Marburg

So this is how my week is planned out:

7.30am - Wake up
8.28am - Catch bus to uni - every single bus runs exactly on time!!

Courtney & I being cool on the bus ;)

9.00am - Start German class
12.30pm - Finish German for the day
1.00pm - Lunch at Mensa, the cafeteria (although I am now just bringing my own because the stuff there is super heavy and not very healthy)
2.00pm - Culture class for 2 hrs

Then free time!


This weekend just gone, on Friday afternoon, we decided to go to a completely random place! So we jumped on the train and eventually got off somewhere completely spontaneous. Turns out to be a tiny little German town called Treysa where almost everything was closed! It had a cool ruined church though.

At an icecream shop - the "pasta" is made from vanilla icecream and the "sauce" is strawberry syrup!

Then Saturday was a chill out day because I was tired from going out that Friday night! Sunday we went on a trip to Mainz, and walked through the town.

A thing I have noticed here is that the alcohol has no taxes like we do, and you can just buy it in any supermarket without needing ID.

And there are just cigarettes everywhere, they even have vending machines on the streets. Yuckkk. So many people smoke here, so different to all our laws and our anti-smoking policies in Australia.

So I'm really loving everything here so far - everyone is lovely and I've met some great new people already. I like German class - even though it's a bit easy. I should probably be in the class on the next language level, but I don't have a good vocabulary and it can't hurt to revise grammar again. I found out I'm top of the class - got 91.6% for the test :) We have to do a mini exam at the end of each week, which I find to be a great idea. I just have to get the confidence to speak in public! Haha.