First Day in Osnabrück- Ted Stalas

I had an amazing time during my first day here in Osnabrück. Many things were surprising to me, both in a positive and negative way. For example, I imagined that the scale of the city was far smaller that what it actually was- I did not expect public transportation, large areas for shopping, or many other things that we saw today. This was a very pleasant surprise, I was glad to know that the area had quite a bit more to see and do than I once expected. I was somewhat disappointed to hear that many of the oldest buildings had been destroyed, and that there were ‘monstrosities’ from the 1960s in their place. The German history course was very interesting, and the German language course seems like it will be very informative for the extra week that I am staying after this course. I was surprised that the language course was not taught via English- I assumed that a 2-week course in the language would necessitate use of English to quickly convey concepts to students who did not speak German. The town tour was also a fantastic experience- I am greatly enjoying the history of Osnabrück and enjoy seeing the interesting architecture and old buildings. Interestingly, the language barrier has not been a major problem for me- of course, I can not converse with a German-speaker in German at all, but my primitive mixture of the few words I know along with hand gestures and guessing has provided passable results for now. It is my goal to have at least a few sentences ready when I travel to the rest of Germany. I have greatly enjoyed the camaraderie provided by the other USF students on this trip, and have had a great time thus far. I hope to have a great time in the remainder of the days here!