Today was a rather wonderful day. :)

I have finally landed.... BASSOON LESSONS!!! THIS makes me happy over all because I NEED them, and instead of doing a 5 or 6 week intensive thing when i get back, i get to actually have lessons! and possibly a connection to the Freiburg Phil, and possibly a connection to chamber music or an orchestra i can play with! AH! so good! :) I am so happy! I am taking lessons with Angela Bergmann (you can google her), a young bassoonist who teaches both Bassoon and Contrabassoon at the school of music university. She literally emailed me back within a few hours, which was WAY better than anyone else could do. So i'm really excited to take lessons from her! Since there are 11 weeks left in the program, and i need 12 lessons for credit, she suggested we start right away, meaning this Thursday! :) YAY! I'm so excited. ;)

Also today was my friend Pam's bday, which meant we went to this SUPER cheap place where they have HUGE orders of Spaghetti Bolognese every day from 6-7 pm for only 1,80 euro! and that means my total meal was like 4 euro. (coke is surprisingly expensive here, but even if you order tap water it will be expensive. gr.) But yeah that was awesome.

Lastly, we had our first classes today (through IES... university courses dont start until the monday after next, and YES, i AM a student of the university hehe got my card and everything). We also had advising, so we just told our advisors what we wanted to take. I am taking 6 courses, and i have all fridays off. There are only 2 Saturdays when i need to stay in Freiburg for Art museum excursions for my Art History course, but other than that i might have a Friday or something for my Theater class that i have to stay, and that's it! I am taking:

German (the highest level, a topics course in conversation and literature)
German History (not just Hitler, like we do in the states!)
German core texts in Philosophy (yes, including Kafka and Nietzsche)
German Theater (19th and 20th Centuries)
German Film from the Third Reich to the Present
Art History

I'm REALLY looking forward to having all my classes in German! It was super fun today in just 2 of my classes to have them speak in German the WHOLE time. Like, they didn't even stop to re-explain something in English... they just kept going, which i LOVED. ;) I can't wait for tomorrow!

Love you all,

Ariel