Ok so this is my first blog post. Hopefully I’ll keep this updated with all the important things that happen to me to thus document my trip for my family and friends.
Here is a (fairly) detailed account of what the past two days have been like since I left Orlando:
So the plane ride over was pretty uneventful. By the time I made it to O’Hare I had 6 hours to kill. By about 2:00 pm I started to see obvious college kids gather around the gate. Most of them wore sweat pants, Ugg boots, and carried backpacks that were three times the size of mine. I planed to watch them from afar before attempting immediate friendship. Later on as more students started arriving I started conversations with a few of them and realized that a girl sitting across from me was one of my roommates. Her name is Emilie is nearly fluent in German.
this is me and her pictured on a train:
The plane (which was as far as I can remember the nicest plane and airline I’ve ever been on) ended up being packed with Miami kids. I slept for maybe and hour on it. We were fed two meals within 3 hours, one of which I ate.
I felt mildly alert walking out into the Düsseldorf airport. We must have looked like refugees compared to the rest of the people there who functioned around us in the terminal. The whole airport was very clean, shiny and smelled like cologne.
Thankfully neither I, nor anyone else lost their bags, which was a miracle considering how many of us there were and how many bags each person brought.
The assistant Dean was waiting for us outside of customs. We were herded on a series of busses and rode for what I assume was about three hours to Differdange. I slept for the majority of it.
By the time we got to the school, a number of host families were already arriving to pick up their students. They mostly consisted of older women, and few middle aged couples. I met one of my other roommates there. Here name is Lauren and, like me she doesn’t speak anything but english. We discovered that we would be taking the same beginning German class.
While waiting at the school to met our family, the school housing coordinator told us that our housemother, Jenney Lee-Atchen, has never had a driver’s license before so she would not be able to pick us up. We were told that we had to catch a ride with Laurent, the IT guy that worked at the campus library. The three of us packed our suitcases in the back of his audi, and he drove us to Luxembourg city. On the way, Laurent told us about how small the country is and how fast it typically takes him to get from one side of it to the other. After realizing that he was going like 60 miles an hour through residential city streets, and close to 100 on the highways we asked him if he frequently got tickets, to which he answered yes. It the trip was exciting, but scary.
He dropped us off at our house and we were greeted by Jenney, our housemother. She immediately told us that her English was limited. She then instructed us to leave our bags in the hallway and rushed us into the kitchen. We sat there awkwardly at her table, which was set for five, not knowing exactly what to do. She had prepared some sort of orange slightly spicy vegetable soup, and crepes. After we started eating, she started talking to us. For about five minutes we attempted a stilted conversation with her, thanking her for the food and telling her where we were from. Once Jenney discovered that Emilie spoke German, she excitedly rushed into full blown conversation. Lauren and I were left sitting there attempting to pick up words and read hand gestures.
Jenney is a older women (70-ish) who has been taking in Miami students since the 80s. She speaks German, French Luxembourgish, and occasionally a few words of English. She lives alone now, but told us that she raised her children in the house. Her children and grandchildren try to visit her often in the city. Her family apparently has lived in Luxembourg for since the turn of the century, and found worked washing clothing for soldiers during WWII. Her house, which she describes as over 100 years old, is a narrow townhouse filled with old furniture and knickknacks. She describes a lot of her things as having a story behind them. For instance I picked up her glass sugar dispenser this morning to add sugar into my coffee and noticed that it didn’t pour properly. She took it from me and told me that her family has used that sugar shaker since 1940-something and it was meant to limit the amount of sugar being poured into a cup at one time, to help with food rationing during the war. This of course was all said back to me via Emilie, who acts our translator for the time being. Apparently Jenney likes start most of her chats about war, and is filled with stories about how horrible it was for the people of Luxembourg. We sat at her table for a few hours trying to decipher her German while she went through a bunch of different stories, most of which I didn’t understand.
Emilie was told us later that Jenney spoke about how many of the other students she has hosted at her house didn't want to talk to her and never spent anytime at the house. I think she really enjoys our company and that fact that we want to spend time with her. Its probably a nice break from living alone. she seems to get excited when telling old stories, so regardless if we understand them or not, we try to look captivated.
this is what my room looks like at her house:
first day of orientation:
We walked to the bus station at 7 50 and went to the train station where we got on a train. the station was about 40 minutes away from Differdange.
When we got there, we sat through a few lectures about being at the school and how to make the best use of our time. Dr. Emile Hagg gave an hour long speech about the history of Lux going from the middle ages to modern day.
The Dean, who seemed like a really nice funny 40 something year old French guy, gave a lecture on the “philosophy of MUDEC”. In it he gave us some advice on how to assimilate into Luxembourg culture. Among his tips he told us not to smile at people unless we know them, and to not drink publically in the streets. He told us that Americans have a stereotype known by Europeans as being ignorant, bums who can't handle alcohol. He told us though that the French have an arrogant stereotype as well, and joked that sense he was French AND running an American school, he is the most discriminated out of all of us.
Later on in the day we went in small groups on a walking tour around the town. We were shown where the cafés are and where the post office is and the shops. The town is pretty small, but cute. It looks a lot different from Lux city, which is much more full of activity.
The 1st meal I bought in Luxembourg was a pizza with deli-meat size slices of ham and mushrooms. We went to the pizza parlor being starved after our 1st day at school. By that time our forth and final roommate, Cari, finally joined us. she came late because she traveled independently and was stuck in London for a day and night apparently.
this is Cari and lauren (my roommates) also pictured on a train:
Orientation day two:
After gong to school and hearing more lectures about living in the country and discussions about culture, we were taken on a trip to the famous of World War II cemeteries, and a bus tour of Luxembourg city.
The we first stopped at the American cemetery for the soldiers the fought in the battle of the bulge at the Ardennes (the site of the last main German offensive in the war).
general George S. Patton was buried here, and I went to see his grave:
then we drove to the German cemetery, which was a little more eerie then the 1st one. We were told that most of the German graves had 4-5 bodies in them, the youngest of them being 15 and 16 year olds. About half of the stones just read “unknown soldier” on them. A few of the graves had fresh flowers on them (who puts flowers on Nazi graves? Maybe there is something I was missing about it…). At the end of the cemetery there was a mass grave pit that had countless names carved into plaques in the stones of a monument. Our guide told us that they ran out of money and space to burry all the bodies.
Later on that day…
When were driving from the school the city on the tour in the middle of the afternoon, most of us struggled to stay awake, still feeling jet lagged. The bus was close to completely silent until a few people by chance opened their eyes and realized that our chartered bus was driving through the most magical city in lux that we had seen yet. Everyone was immediately shoved to share the wonder and gawk out the windows. We took out cameras and snapped tons of pictures while a very friendly Luxembourgian woman announced details about the buildings around us through the microphones.
After driving around through the old part of lux city, and the newer corporate/banking section, we got off the bus to take the rest of the tour on foot. This included notable statues, a cathedral visit, and a trip through flashy part of town. These pictures really don't do it justice, but i'm sure i'll take more that i'll post later on
The only draw back to this great tour of the city was the weather. I’ve never been so cold in my life. It was in the low twenties and windy. My frozen feet literally didn’t bend after a while, so I walked flat foot for the last hour of it. if it was like 10-15 degrees warmer things would have been better, but in all it was great experience.
*sidenote: (I think the last time I saw the sun was in Orlando...brrrrrr...)
Later that night a group of people stayed in the downtown restaurant/shopping area of the city. We ended up eating at a restaurant that was “American themed” without realizing it. I ordered my 1st legal drink (Bofferding beer), which I’m going to have to take a while to get used to.
This was also the 1st night that I managed to get home on my own, which gave me a huge level of confidence, after getting quite nervous about trying to figure out the bus system.
Third day of orientation:
We sat though another series of lectures and then were put on buses again. We were taken to the largest high school in Luxembourg. (seriously this was like the nicest public school that I think have ever seen. It was incredibly clean and well decorated. There bright colors everywhere and artwork hanging from all over the walls and the ceiling. i wish MY high school had looked like that)
MUDEC had arranged that we listen to a couple local administrators in the school give interesting speeches about the middle ages and the battle of the bulge. Afterwards, we were fed a lunch in the school cafeteria by the lunch ladies, that was basically restaurant quality food. (I’m convinced the Luxembourg teenagers probably take everything for granted, and have no idea how nice their life is. They eat everyday from like an actual running kitchen that makes all of its own food, and has a real life salad bar with lots of different greens and fresh vegetables and beans and a whole section full of oils and dressings. On real plates and silverwere. America needs to catch up.)
Anyway after we left the school we went on a “medieval tour” which was going to see the a castle (i forget the name of it), It was in another breathtaking spot. The castle itself was on a hill that comes out of the side of the mountain and just getting up the incline in the snow was intense.
We also went to a winery today. The tour was right on the boarder of France and Germany. It would have been so beautiful during summer, but the vines were covered in snow and chopped short for winter. We went inside the distillery though and saw all the presses and metal vats and shiny tubes that connect everything. The guy who ran the place gave us a tour, and let us do a tasting. He was very enthusiastic about his policy of absolutely NOT making any sweet wine. He told us sweet wine was for the lower classes, and we did not need it.
Lesson learned.
That’s all for today.
i'll post more soon about my upcoming days at school and whatever trips i go on soon.
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