Hello all, sorry its been a few days. My sister is visiting and we’ve been hitting the town something fierce. Think the Chocolate Room, happy hours, soup dumplings in Chinatown, the Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Heights, and perhaps the most fun of all, Fuerzabruta (which I can’t possibly describe, but will hook you up with some of my sister’s awesome photos when they are uploaded). This morning, we’re both plugging back into our virtual worlds for a little bit.

In other news, the nine American fellows that I’ll be in Germany with have started a Google Group so that we can have group conversations about small details without sending mass e-mails. A handful of the fellows (who don’t speak German) are settling in Bonn right now to begin their three months of language training. Reading about them getting settled is making me even more excited — three more weeks until I leave the country!

I’ll be joining them in July (after spending a week in Hamburg) for my two months of language, and the other fellows that are a little more fluent than the rest of us will arrive in August. Although I love Hamburg and Berlin, I’m happy to be able to get to know a smaller city like Bonn for a couple months. I think it will be a perfect transition into German life. I’m also looking forward to being able to dedicate some serious effort to taking my German language skills beyond where they have been stagnating for the last several months.

Wow, I can’t wait for this all to begin!