Day 1 (Of Blogging)

Wednesday 05.06.2013

First, I just want to apologize fr starting this blog a little later into this trip but I still have 22 days left so I definitely have a lot to post about!. On top of this, I'll post some pictures and talk about things I have already done.

So thanks to the Max Kade Foundation and the CIT Travel Grant Board, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity of traveling in the Summer of 2013 to complete my minor in German. I am enrolled in 4-week Intensive Program which consists of two courses to learn German at the Goethe Institut in Munich (München), Germany. My experience with the Institut thus far has been amazing and my professor is outstanding and does a great job at making German-to-English grammar make sense. Being here a couple days early, I can't lie I was intimidated by not really knowing the language. I had taken my first semester of German (Elementary German I) this past spring and I knew the basics but mainly people spoke to quickly for me to pick up what they were saying. Hopefully by the end of the month I will be able to keep up in conversation with a random stranger from the street.

Every weekday I have class from 8:30 am until 12:45 pm but after I like to explore the city on my own. Today I went by the University area as well as the Englischergarten and I was amazed. The city has not really impressed me as I expected until I passed through here. The University Buildings were immense and the campus was littered with quiet mini-plazas where you can catch people drinking their mid-day coffee (they do it a lot) or just smoking a cigarette in peace(that too). After that I walked straight into the Englishergarten and found the University's science building hidden behind a wall of trees making an awesome picture. Later on, I walked into a clearing in the garden which was filled with people tanning and enjoying one of the first sunny, warm days in Munich. People were even surfing through river from waves caused by earlier flooding(Last week was rough). After that I got on the metro toward the Olympziapark which was the site for one of many World Cup 2008 pitches in Germany as well as all the facilities from the 1972 Olympics hosted in Munich. The stadium's were an engineers dream and after a serious hike up a hill in the park, I got great pictures of the park as well as the cityscape of Munich. After this , which was about 5 hours of walking, my day concluded with a game of soccer at the Hirschgarten as well ass homework and studying.