Quick first post!!

Hey all, I am here!!

I have to leave in a half hour to go to the Kassel University for my welcoming meeting, where I will be shown what rooms my classes will be in, I'll get my bus pass, and I will even be fed supper.

There is already SO much to post about, but Germans are real real punctual, so I pretty much only have 15 minutes to type on a keyboard that has scrambled keys, to fit in all the extra German alphabet characters. :)

I am not sure what I'll be able to do as far as upload pictures to you *while* I am here, since I don't want to spam my host family's computer with drivers and MBs of space that my pictures will all take up. However, I have already taken several pictures, and I plan to share them all when I get back in three long weeks!! I am thinking about putting 'em all up on Geocites or something.

My flight to Frankfurt went alright; I think we had a new pilot though, because we had horrible, horrible turbulence off and on throughout the entire flight. I am pretty sure the plane started to nosedive for 1000 feet when we were over the Atlantic Ocean. Plus, when we landed, he dynamited the brakes on the front tire of the plane's landing gear, so it all started to smoke and pull the plane to the left, just feet of a margin before the edge of the runway. Üf!

All in all, the views were gorgeous, and I felt a great sense of pride when we were still flying over the United States, flying east. We flew over Detroit, Montreal, Toronto, and then over the north tip of Maine...all the way over the Atlantic Ocean, just south of Greenland, and then into the UK, over London. Finally, we cut into Germany.

When we landed, I was aghast to see that they use Volkswagens and Mercedes Benz for EVERYTHING. What is considered a $50,000 Benz minivan in the United States, is used as a taxi here. Wah. And all the runway muels and luggage carriers, are Volkswagens...brands not even made in the U.S., I cannot even tell what they are.

And hey! Ford may be dying in the U.S. versus competition from Toyota and Honda, but over here the Ford Focus station wagon is remarkably popular. I have seen a lot of drivers with this vehicle. And there are no other American-made cars here. Just the Ford Focus. And it is only in the station wagon style.

My host family is very sweet. They are a like my grandparents: children all grown up and out of the home, with families of their own. They are very sweet, and offer to do so many things for me. I swear, every time I step out into the hallway from my bedroom, Mary jumps up and offers me "cookie, coffee, ice cream, or tea??" She offers to do my laundry (I've only been here for one day!!), and they let me sleep in as late as I wish.

Günter sits with me and watches CNN, talking politics, economics, cars, and the Euro with me. What I found interesting is that both Günter and Mary have already asked me, and separately, if I liked Bush as a president.

In return, I ask them how they feel about Saddam Hussein being killed. Both are glad.

I am not gonna lie, I am very homesick and I am half scolding myself for wondering what I got myself into. I actually got sick to my stomach today, but I slept it off and now that I had a day to get my routine down, I feel better.

I'm counting down the three weeks, but not as much as I'm counting down the days until we tour Volkswagen!!

I'll try to post again soon...I don't want to be a computer hog here at the host family's home and I always switch into "über-polite" mode when I am around new people.

Time to go. Chuß!