Guten Morgen!As promised (Jessica and Alyssa…ehem) I have created a blog-site. Granted, it only took me about a month and a half to write my first entry;)I'll try to do better in the coming month, I promise. In the short time I have been here, I have learned so much, seen so much and experienced so much that I want to remember it all, write it all down so that I can look back on it. So my goal is to write a couple entries a month. We shall see how that goes….

Since I have been here a while already and have kept in contact with many of you via email, I will try to keep this more recent so that I don't repeat myself. But here's a short update on what I've been up to.

I am living in a wonderful apartment right at the southern corner of the university.It is absolutely the perfect location, right above the shops, bookstore and bakeries. Right across the street is a "Creative Store" with lots of crafts (Shivani and Heather, thinking of you obviously). I have yet to buy anything there but one day I want to get a painting set and paint in the park.

Let's see… so my first week here I did a lot of settling-in type stuff. I have successfully opened a German bank account, but the experience really taught me what a culture of bureaucracy German has. Everything must be signed, "read and approved"; there were at least 10 pages to sign and more to read; multiples proofs of habitation and financial support had to be proffered...the list goes on! It's really quite amazing the nation does not come to a complete stop. I think I would go crazy working in an office here.

In the same vein, I was rejected in my first attempt to get my Aufenthaltserlaubnis (a permit to stay for the year and earn a living): my passport photocopy picture was too dark and they wouldn't accept the proof of matriculation form from the university since I didn't have my student ID yet. I had the other 9 pieces of info, copied, and the requisite 3 passport photos, but it was a no-go. Go figure. I think I've made 30 photocopies of things by now. OMG.

But in the time that I was not running around and having the pleasure of interacting with the German bureaucracy, I did get to do an incredible amount of sight-seeing. I went to the Schloss Nymphenburg, the Olympia Gardens, BMW world, the zoo, the English Gardens, and lots more. I could write pages and pages on each of these but should probably move on.

In mid-September I went to Orientation in Göttingen where I met some truly amazing people.The program they prepared for us was awesome and has been one of my best memories thus far. The first day we did a walking tour of the city and got to hear all of its storied history!The town was home to some well-known celebrities including the Grimm Brothers, Otto von Bismarck, and Lichtenstein (with whom our tour guide had the weirdest obsession). Then we had a buffet dinner at this famous restaurant in the city which had everything imaginable! When we got back to the hotel, we met our roommates. Olivia was my roommate- she is a fellow Fulbrighter in Munich so it was great to be paired with her since we are going to be in the same city this whole year.She definitely likes to talk -- we stayed up the whole first night talking and I got to know her really well.I met a lot of others and will tell more about them later…

Herr Rohr is the head of the German Fulbright and the one who gave most of the orientation presentations. He is the nicest, little old German man who reminds me of my grandpa.Although you could never guess from appearance, he has a wonderful sense of humour. He even gave a whole Power-point for us on German Bureaucracy (needless to say, that did NOT prepare me sufficiently for my encounters). He covered a wide range of interesting topics, such as what to expect as your Fulbright rights … I guess this was necessary because last year a Fulbrighter wanted to travel to Israel and ran into conflict with getting approval from the administration -- he felt that Fulbright was curtailing his rights as a citizen to travel. Herr Rohr was like "Luckily we reached a compromise.He did not go." A good indication of the German definition of compromise.

On a side note I will say that the Germans also like to make fun of Americans. My professor at the university, Dr. Ann, asked me if I've ever been outside the U.S. and I told him about my internship last summer and he was like "Ah good. So the whole concept of intelligent life outside America is not foreign to you." Very funny.But seriously, given the whole financial crisis, American government has become a huge focus of critique here. Just a couple of weeks ago I attended a conference at the European Patent Office (Dr. Ann spoke, it was an incredible experience…but more on that later), and many of the speakers made reference to the American government. The president of the Chinese patent office spoke about the American practise of printing out money and was like "And they wonder why the deficit is so large." Everyone laughed.I will admit, I am only beginning to develop a sense of humour about these things.

Ok a bit more on my work here. My adviser at the university is incredibly nice and welcoming. I'm always nervous to start working for new people but he really recognizes that this is more an opportunity for me to experience life in Europe than it is about my project. He is himself very busy and is on "research term" this semester so he doesn't much come to the university. I have an office at the university which I am sharing with Lena and Michael (will put up pictures). Lena is 24 and she is probably the closest friend I have made so far. She lives two streets down from me so it is really convenient for us to do stuff.Last weekend, we went to tour the Residenz Museum which was absolutely beautiful beyond words.

Okay well I am clearly going to have to continue this in another entry because there's so much to tell and I have to go now.This weekend I'm heading to Austria!!

LOVE it here but miss you all!