I'm excited to be back for a lot of reasons, not the least of which being that my experiences with Germans have been overwhelmingly positive. And the trend continues, as I already have a very, very good feeling about the lab I will be working in and the people in it. I know I said this about Paris, too, but I think that may partly be due to the fact that scientists are generally awesome. Or at least the ones I know.
On the other hand, I really, really hate all the settling-in tasks I have to do when I arrive. Registering with the city, registering with the University (especially since I'm a Sonderfall--ugh), finding an apartment, getting a bank account, getting health insurance, and the list goes on....grrraaurgh. It doesn't help that my French bank suddenly decided to deny all online wire transfers I attempt. It's as if they want me to not be able to pay my rent...
I'm also not managing very well with not having a kitchen, fridge, or anywhere to store my food these first couple of weeks. In an effort to not eat out all the time, I still go to the grocery store, but this usually results in me thinking, "Hey, grapes! Raisin bread! and RITTERSPORT! That'll fill me up, right?" and it does, but with the unfortunate side effect of feeling really ill afterwards.
But it's still lovely, and certain things cheer me up a lot, such as seeing the BierBike on the Reeperbahn (www.bierbike.de), and getting asked questions by extremely polite little German kids (excuse me, Ma'am, but we're on a birthday scavenger hunt, and we were wondering if you might know what the name of that church over there is?), even if they seem to not know quite what to make of my accent and foreignness when I respond. But in a way, that is cute as well :)
Eventually I'll have to make a post about my wonderful summer experiences at Lac du Bois, (http://lacduboisbemidji.villagepages.org/), which was more fun than I ever would have predicted, but now I have to rearrange all my stuff to see if I will be able to bring it to my new place in only two trips. Whee!
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