First Few Days in the Germ

I know that some people (ahemm, Kim) are waiting with bated breath for my first post, so wait no longer. To start, I'm Sierra from Skaneateles, New York, and I'm living in Hamburg, Germany as a Rotary exchange student for the 2010-2011 school year. More specifically, I live in Harburg, which was a small city outside of Hamburg that got swallowed up by the main city. My host mom's name is Sabine, my host brother's name is Samir, and they're really nice.
Boring stuff aside, I arrived on Sunday, August 15th to the Hamburg airport where Sabine, Samir, and the family dog awaited me. I'm not sure how to spell the dog's name so I won't even try, but it starts with an F and ends with an ER and reminds me a lil bit of a certain English word...anyways, it is actually from the streets of Spain, so I've decided that I will use it to keep up with my Spanish. When we got back to the house, I met Tibu, Samir's French friend, and his parents, and also an Indian boy who rents a room (my room) in the house. Once he's gone, I move in. For now, I get Sabine's master bedroom. Hehe. Anyways, the French rents brought us out to dinner at an Italian restaurant, where I heard my first bit of drunken German singing. I anticipate much more to come. While at dinner, I asked Samir, was the hamburger invented in Hamburg? Well, that had him stumped, and he replied, "I don't think so...didn't McDonalds invent it?" Hahahahaha. Who knew the Germans were such a humorous bunch?!
Yesterday, Sabine brought me into Hamburg, trying to teach me how to use public transportion (I'm screwed) whilst pointing out different odds and ends. Hamburg is really a beautiful city, with lots of canals and water all over the place. Starting tomorrow, I'm attending Colon Language School in the city for a month to improve my German (not so hot) and I'm also going to take sailing lessons. In the words of Sabine, "When you told me you wanted to sail yesterday, I thought it was brilliant. You have nothing to do and you have no friends, so it will give you something to do." Marveyy.
Germans seem to be very ecologically conscious, too. Everywhere there are people riding bikes, and there are actually certain areas of the sidewalk which are supposed to be just for bikers. I walk in that part just to spice up life a little. It makes for a fun game, Avoid the Angry German on the Bike. Also, in the grocery store, plastic bags aren't free: they cost 9 cents a bag, so everybody brings their own reusable bag when shopping. Here at home, there are four different garbages: one for fruit and vegetables and other compost-able things, one for regular garbages, one for paper and one for metal and plastic.

My address here is
Sierra Prochna
Fam. Roisch
Daerstorfer Weg 8b
21145 Hamburg
Germany
postage is welcome!


The host fam