Arrival: Deutschland

My first view of Marburg, from the Hauptbahnhof, or main train station. After my arrival in Frankfurt at 7:30 Deutschzeit (German time) I met up with the other UT Dallas student, James King, and we bought a train ticket to Marburg. We headed to the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof via a short train trip from the airport, then made our way towards the humungous bahnsteig (train platform). It was there I saw my first Starbucks, and I resisted the beast quite easily. Not wanting to look too american or touristy, I neglected to retrieve either of the cameras from my bag, so I have no images of the Frankfurt train station, but when I go back there on my last day in Deutschland, I will take some. It really is an amazing place; it would be difficult to feel anything other than in the center of the world while one is standing in the middle, looking up at the big board, which updates passengers on platform changes and such. Ours changed, and had James not gone to check at the last minute we'd have been stuck there for a few hours. An hour train ride from Frankfurt found us in Marburg, where we were greeted by some people holding up yellow signs with "ISU" on them. We boarded a van, drove through our new home to an academic office building where we wnet over logistics and made sure we were all paid. Here, a variety of students--Lithuanian, Polish, Albanian, Canadian, Australian, etc.--mingled and engaged in all kinds of German conversations, ranging from very basic (mine and James'), to complicated and zu schnell ("too fast"; i.e., all the Europeans). Eventually, we were taken to our dorms...
Here is my dorm, with various views:

The door, from inside...

...end of my new bed and my very empty desk...

...sink behind the door...

...and here's me after I "decorated":

That's all for now...so now you have an idea of where I live... I will post more pictures later, of the actual city and also form the trips we go on during the weekend excursions...
Tschüß!
-BW