Goethe Institut

Good morning everyone!

This morning I woke up to rain and a giant slug on my window!

I have never seen a slug that big at home in the States before! Crazy.

Anyway, I left my hotel this morning, caught a taxi, and headed off to the Goethe Institute in downtown Goettingen. I have spent all morning passing through lines and waiting for hours! There are a lot of students here!

Upon arrival, I dropped off my baggage in the baggage room and went to a line to have my passport checked and to prove that I have overseas health insurance (they wouldn't let you start the course without it, if you didn't have it upon arrival, they had an affordable plan through the school).

After that I was pointed towards another line where I waited to have an interview with someone to act as my oral exam.  The man that brought me in, asked me my name, spelled it wrong on the form (I think on purpose so that I could prove I could say German letters), and then asked me things like how long I have studied German, where I am from, what I want to get out of the course here, what I like to do in my spare time, and what kind of German classes I most recently took at school.  He said I was a very good speaker and quite easy to understand and said he was sure I belonged in the B level, and he was leaning towards B2 so that's what he circled.  (B2 is the last level before fluency in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages - for a quick overview, see the link).  A1 is the first level, and C2 is complete fluency.

After the oral exam, which I felt pretty confident about, he took me to a room where a woman administered written exams.  The first part I felt pretty good about, the second part, which was aimed particularly toward level B2 and higher, seemed extremely difficult.  Everything was multiple choice and there were several words I hadn't even heard before.  I turned it in to the woman and she asked how I thought it went.  I said it seemed really hard.  She smiled and just said, "You didn't even start school yet. I wouldn't worry about it.  However you did, you're going to improve a lot in the next eight weeks."

After that I went to another office and got my room key.  I'm on the 2nd floor of the Goethe Institute in an extremely large room, considering it is only for two people.  This was a nice surprise as I signed up to share with more girls to reduce my price more, but they moved things around a little bit and gave me a bigger room for the same price as if I had been splitting it with more people.  It's almost twice the size of my dorm room at WLC!  The ceilings are probably about 15 feet tall too, so it seems extra roomy.  We have a large window with a pretty view of the front of the school and neighboring houses which are also very beautiful and look very old.

We have a bed, desk, closet, a wardrobe and large shelving units for each of us, a sink in the room, and a minifridge.  We each have a tiny safe in the wardrobe and more shelving by the sink.  All of the desk drawers lock so that we can stow away extra valuables that may not fit in the safe.

I am all unpacked, but haven't met my roommate yet - no one has moved in so far.  Maybe I get a whole room to myself? I haven't seen anyone else on my floor yet either, but check-in continues for about 6 more hours.

It seems like at least half the students I met are from the US which was more than I expected after seeing the Goettingen Goethe Institute's facebook group for students.  Most students writing about their experiences were Turkish, French, or Chinese.  So far, I have only seen Americans, Indians, French, Korean, and I think a few Turks.

Here are some pictures of the Institute that I took so far today.

Pictures of the main hall and stairway to my floor.

Pictures from my room and the view outside.