Day 1 at Marquardt

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  Böttingen, Germany
Monday, June 2, 2008

Friday we went to Schwenningen, which is admittedly the less cool half of Villingen-Schwenningen. We walked around some and toured the Berufsakadmie, which is our partner university here and translates to something like "Career Academy". I am an exchange student with the academy and through them have my internship (Praktikum) at Marquardt. My host brother, Alexander, is also a student at the academy, as are many of the American's host families. Works out well. It's an interesting system that they have (and most German universities are not like this, by the way): it's three years of focused study, alternating between three months of classes and three months of internship at a local company.

Anyway, that afternoon we went to a clock manufacturing museum for a tour in German, and then we had a little party where we met our host families. I'm staying with the Minder family and they have been quite welcoming. I am really glad it has worked out and they are so friendly to take me in. They have been really cool about my vegetarianism here. It's kind of funny - it's definitely an exception here, and people wonder about a bit, but it's accepted, and I don't think anyone thinks I'm too weird or anything. I do get questions, though, and sometimes it's hard to explain complex things like this in German. Anyway, both of Alexander's sisters are older, married with a child or two, and living not too far away. They have also been quite welcoming. My host father is actually the mayor of this village and the next one over, which means that everyone knows him, so that's kind of interesting. Saturday morning we went to the local Feuerwehrfest (literally, Fire Defense Festival, but it's really a celebration for all the local volunteer firemen who were having their tests throughout the day) and everyone knew him. I should mention that Alexander is a volunteer fireman and our town of Böttingen successfully passed their silver test.

Today was finally my first day of work. I was admittedly a bit nervous, and I still kind of am, since I haven't really actually started my project yet. I know I'm doing something with unit testing, and we program in C#. I'm just happy to be programming in Germany - quite literally a dream come true, even if it is a challenge to understand all the workplace German. Thankfully many technical words are similar to English, but that's not always the case. Me and another of the Americans working in another department had a sort of introduction session for most of the day with other new employees, but we understood little to nothing of the presentations. In my department, though, I think I'm getting along fine. Today I was just acquainted with the area and then instructed to begin installing software on my computer. This morning my father drove me to work, but normally I'll take the bus for about 25 minutes, and that's how I got home today. Not bad.

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