Settling in

So I'm settling in here more and more in Rheda. School is slowing down to a regular pace and it's becoming less and less of a strain to understand everything going on in class. I can understand more and more of songs in German that I've listened to for months. Immersing myself in the language is really helping my comprehension.

I'm now teaching three times a week at school and it's turning out to be a lot of fun. Two times a week I have an English class and once a week I teach a cultural studies class. The students seem to enjoy it and it's rewarding for me. It's also good to be able to present my view of America and the world to students who usually only experience it filtered through mass media.

Now for some pictures...

Some of Friday afternoon and Saturday morning was spent with the host cousins. They are really cute, very energetic, and a lot of fun. We played the Swedish lawn game Kubb, which is actually really popular here in Germany (shout out to Bojö).






I spent Saturday afternoon and night in Bielefeld with my host sisters and my host brother. First we went to see a Bundesliga (German professional football [soccer] league) match between Hertha Berlin and my new favorite DSC Arminia Bielefeld.



Before kickoff, everyone singing.



Bielefeld scores! 1:0. DSC Arminia Bielefeld ended up winning 2:0 and was in 2nd place at the end of the day. I hope all of us Bielefeld fans took pictures, because that won't last too long, the 30-plus game season is only just underway.




Just a map with Rheda-Wiedenbrück marked. The dark points are larger cities. Just southwest of me you can see the Ruhrgebiet, a highly industrialized area of Germany.

That's about it. As always, feel free to comment, and keep in touch.