“Hey, how are you?” – these are the first words you´re going to hear in the USA. It doesn’t matter in which store you are or where you are going, they will ask you this question.
After a stressful start in San Diego because my luggage decided to stay in Frankfurt, I recognized how friendly and nice the Americans can be. Mostly all Americans are apologizing for everything, even when I bump into them or they just walk next to you. Small Talk is one of the things you must do otherwise you won’t be able to go out. Although going out isn´t that easy at all especially for people under 21 years, like me. I can´t even get into bars without drinking alcohol but I’m allowed to drive my own car. It’s funny, isn’t it? Also, Customer service is a high written rule for the waiters in restaurants, on the other side you must give a high tip.
San Diego itself became my favourite city in the whole world within the first day. It reminds me of Spain, a country I love. Beautiful beaches connected with a wild Downtown and only a few miles to be in the desert or in Mexico. I went to Point Loma, a lighthouse and a museum on the top of a hill with an amazing view all over San Diego. I recommend it a lot. It never gets boring because only the amount of beaches you can discover is crazy. San Diego connects so many different cultures and you can experience Italy, or how they call it: “Little Italy”, next to a Spanish village. The only negative thing in America is the food… I miss real bread and vegetables because everything is fried, even the pretzels.
After four days I had the orientation day at the National University. It started with breakfast and it ended with Pizza. Most of the international students are Germans and it was easy to communicate with each other. They showed us the campus and told us about the programs, for example the veteran program. It was a chill day with nice people and presentations.
We would only have one course in a month, only two days in a week and class usually in the evening but my first class is set up in the morning. Tomorrow is my third lesson of the first course, so I can tell a few things about it. We are only around 10 German people in our class. Everybody is studying at the Macromedia in Germany. My first course is about intercultural communication which is a little bit funny because we are only Germans with an American teacher. The day before our first lesson we got our syllabus, which scared me at first because it’s a hard workload. But our teacher, a cute older Lady, tries to make it as simple as possible for us. Because of the one course per month system we have one final exam every month, maybe it’s easier because I don’t have to learn three different subjects. The American System has a mid-term, an exam in the middle of the course, and a final exam which means we have to write an exam every two weeks. Which might be stressful…or not, let´s see.
The time in California shows me another side of life. Everything looks like in movies and even the people are the same as in movies. It´s like a dream I´m not waking up from. I´m excited about the upcoming time and how stressful University will be.
Greetings from sunny California!
