Es schneit!!!

Woke up at 7am this morning. Took my time to wash up and wash my clothes that i didn't noe that it was 8am already! (supposed to leave at 8:30am) The sky only brightens up at 8 plus so it still seemed early. Ate muesli cereal with milk for breakfast cos i was in a rush. The muesli was DAMN NICE LAR!! yummy. My loaf of bread which expires in 3 days' time seem impossible to finish.

Ok anw, I stepped out of my hostel. Lo and behold, it was SNOWING!! yay... second encounter with snow, the last time was in Switzerland. Took some pics while walking to school:

The bridge to Vallendar

Students walking into WHU

Playground

Welcome session was at the Chapel in school. Received my info package, with a survival kit and other useful info inside. While waiting, there were alot of Chinese people coming in together. Was quite shocked because according to Peirong’s fren who went there 3 years ago (I think), there were only a couple of Asians there. But as Christian said, it’s good for us lar. hahaha

During the session, the associate Dean, international relations office pple, housing pple and school’s student initiative called VIP (vallendar integration programme) took turns to introduce themselves. The session started at 9:15am but ended before 10am. Met Hao Wen aka Hao-we from SMU. Had 1.5hrs of free time so Christian and I took a walk around Vallendar. Went to the Sparkasse again but I was told that I needed to register at the Town Hall first. So off we went walking again.

1 Deg celcius today!

Walking walking walking. I thought we were lost! Then, lo and behold again, we found the Rathaus (Town Hall). Since we had time, we went in! Got registered! Yay! Now I can set up my bank account!

At Sparkasse, a very nice lady attended to me. She spoke in German. She spoke quite fast at times but I could roughly understand her (I nodded even if I didn’t understand =X ) All was done and I left the bank. But I suddenly remembered I didn’t pay €20 yet for the opening of my account! So I rushed back. The lady had forgotten about it too and in return, gave me this! :D :D :D :D :D

My piglet has a fren now :)

Registration & Bank account done!

Went back school at 11.30am for another info session about courses offered. Ended earlier than stipulated time again. It’s really cool, I think Germans like to give short and sweet sessions, unlike in Singapore where everything is jam packed. Hope lectures are like that too =X

Went back to hostel for a quick lunch before heading back to school for German Placement test. Yes. Test on the first day. But again, the test was very short, lasted for 25 mins or so even though the schedule was 1.5hrs long. It was a very weird test, unlike the one I sat for in NUS. We were required to write a few sentences about how and when we arrived in Germany. Totally stunned. Thought they’d test us on grammar, spot the mistakes etc. Oh well, just wrote 4 or 5 sentences =S

We needed to go through an interview, which was an hour later. So I followed Liu and Sok kit, who live at Guesthouse Schumann with me, to get pre-paid cards. While in the mobile shop, there was this exchange student who spoke German very well. New Zealand accent was strong but it was fluent and colloquial. Quite worried about the interview later on...

The interview was in groups of 4. There were 2 Americans who learnt German in High School; one of them takes German as a minor. They were fluent! Just sounded like they were speaking in English. There are 4 levels of German and looking at the description, I circled 3 and 4. Now I’m really worried if they put me in a higher level German class. Went back hostel on my own.

Snow's fun: My footprints!

But makes my shoe dirty =(

Had a campus tour at 6pm. My group of 7 people were all Asians. Met this enthusiastic guy from South Korea who was SUPER FUNNY. The thing is, he is studying MBA already. Couldn’t tell.

Looking around the campus, Christian saw a piece of paper on a notice board, which was the placement test results! To my horror, I was placed in level 4!!!! Oh my tian.. So gonna struggle and die in this course. Good thing is, hopefully i can finally map a German course back to NUS. I’m so afraid now. First class starts on Thursday. Dead.

Moving on, we went to Koroca bar, opposite WHU for dinner. Had pizza. Was famished! Was quite sick of it after eating the first slice cos it was very salty but i ate 2 slices in the end. Left early cos we were so tired.

I haven forgotten about you! =)

That’s my tiring first day in School. =)