Göttingen’s scenic and vibrant landscape has left a sincere impression on my mind in just one week.
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The landscape is a myriad of colors. While deep greens engross most of the city, deep warm hues of reds, oranges, yellows, pinks, and even lila (purple) appear through the leafy canopies. My daily thirty-minute walk to school (one hour round trip) allows me to fully embrace the city’s pleasant scenery. Even as the array of houses, schools, and buildings pierce the sky–of modern, neoclassical, and historicism styles–the cranberry, forest green and emerald-colored leaves make their way up the buildings, slowly devouring them.
The modern pale gray Georg August University building occupies a portion of the city close to the Bahnhof ((m) train station). I pass it frequently. While I notice the bustle of the academic setting, I mainly notice the university’s culture–the political stickers, empty energy drink cans occupying trash buckets, and the surrounding area underneath, and green and burgundy leaves climbing the grayscale buildings.
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My first few days at school are best described alongside my walk to school as I enjoy and have grown comfortable with both. Last Thursday, excited for the one-mile walk, I crept from my apartment at 6:45 a.m. I knew nothing except that I should report to the secretary’s office and find my mentor teacher by noon, and I passed two bakeries who sold Käsebretzels ((f)cheese pretzels). Google maps guided me uphill into suburban Göttingen from where I lived downtown. As I made my way to the school with bikes zooming downhill past me, my Angst ((f) fear) hoped on the back of their bikes and left me.
“It will be fine,” I thought to myself. “They know I am new, so why would they not be nice?”
I arrived at the school, confused, excited, and nervous. I filled out paperwork and found myself sitting in a 10thgrade English class practicing for their oral exams.
“What time does school even start? How long are the lessons? Will the students notice the button missing from my blue shirt?” I thought to myself as the class continued. Another class, bilingual German history, and four cups of coffee later, my first day as an English Teaching Assistant was finished. I meandered my way back to my apartment, a shared WG, downtown.
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Near my apartment, a plethora of German grocery stores, Rewe, Aldi, Lidl, Penny, and Edeka keep fighting for my attention. The aisles of unrefrigerated eggs, milk, and “THIS IS NOT M*LK” stare back at me as I wander the store without a grocery list trying to quickly figure out which brand of Muesli does not contain added sugar. “Bio” stands out alongside the nutri-score printed on most items occupying the selves. Halloween hot dogs, shelves of pickled vegetables, and everything with a Kräuter ((f) herbs) option also stands out on the short, packed shelves.
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As my first week in Göttingen ends, rain and wind advisories move over the city. Unlike this time of year in Texas, I am already dawning fuzzy socks and warm pullovers as I peruse the city every day. The rain compliments the city’s deep green landscape as fall creeps in slowly. While the sky remains gray and rain steadily appears, the lush emerald trees stand tall throughout the city.
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