I'm in Germany, yo.

“What's that? You decided to create a blog to update people on your international adventures? That’s such an original idea, Katie. People never do this. It won’t seem clichéd or dull at all, especially if you write details only your mom cares about.” –Someone

Right, so I’m in Germany at the moment. Specifically, in a city called Göttingen (or Goettingen, for those of you who don’t know how to make an umlaut.) Even more specifically, I’m in the Goethe Institute. (I suppose that can be an umlaut too, but I think it looks better without it, don't you?) There are institutes like this one in cities throughout Germany and around the world. It's all "international" and stuff.

The Institute itself is kind of like East Quad, with a dorm, classrooms, and food all in the same building, except instead of a bunch of hippies, the people here are from every freakin' corner of the world (some are still hippies though.) My class is fairly small with only 10 people, but their homes are in Cyprus, Thailand, Italy, Colombia, China, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia... and then there's me, from the U.S. (obviously the premier exotic location.)

Speaking of the U.S., nothing puts our dear nation in perspective quite like walking past a tree that's been there longer than Amurrica has been in existence. Yep, there's a plaque commemorating the oldest tree along the old city wall of Göttingen that says, "planted in 1760."  

"Oh, but Katie, there are trees in America that are older than that." 

OK, you Redwood-tree-hugging sassy pants. But the city hall was built in 1270, so... there's that.

More importantly, there's a delicious restaurant in the basement below their city hall (food > history). I've eaten there twice, but as I'm writing this I just realized that people may have been whipped there, or been chained up and left to rot, or something equally medieval. Well, I suppose nothing says "Guten Appetit!" like the lingering souls of imprisoned peasants (mmm... tastes like feudalism.) But in all seriousness, the food is great in Germany. I mean, I don't ever really know what I order, so it comes out and I'm like, "Oh! It's a salad!" But it's like a game! A really fun, rather expensive game. 

Traveling here went really smoothly, mostly thanks to my companion/fellow Michigan student Heather. She’s been to Germany before and tells me important things like, “Don’t get on that train car, it's first class only!” and, “Don’t eat pizza with your hands, you look like a barbarian!” Seriously, Heather has saved both myself and Elisa (the third and final Michigan gal) from many a faux pas (woah, using a French word in a German context? This blog is raging out of control.) Elisa and I share a room, and Heather lives a floor down. The rooms are nice, everything is nice, except for the pillows (seriously, I might as well ball up a pair of gym shorts and use that instead.)

I complain, but it's insignificant compared to the wonderful time I'm having so far!

(And if there are any doubts to the legitimacy of this travel blog, let it be known that I chose the "Travel" template, so... clearly it's legit.)