Guten Tag!

Well, I’ve officially moved to a country where I don’t know a soul and hardly know the language. “WHY DID I DO THIS???” I kept thinking as I woke up every hour on my first night. I quickly remembered the reasons “why” and learned even more reasons over the next couple of days.

I forced myself to get out of my jetlag right away. I arrived at my apartment at around 12:30pm, and I spent all day rearranging my furniture, unpacking, and exploring my surroundings. I really love my apartment!

Views from my windows:

A nearby confusing 6-way intersection:

On my first full day here, I went to my new school. Everyone was so welcoming, and many faculty members knew that I must be Mallory. The math department was so friendly and I can tell they get along very well. They’ve even mentioned that other departments are jealous that the math dept is so close :). The math teachers are from the UK, Australia, the Philippines, America, and I think 1 from France. I was so happy to meet them and I know I’m going to love my new school. They were eager to help me in any way they can and I learned that 2 of the younger ones live only a few streets away from me. I met some parents during conferences with the teacher I’m replacing and sat in on some of his classes. I also did some boring but productive stuff like register my address with the police and get a bank account. An HR lady that I’ve been in contact with since before I was hired helped me with everything, showed me around the town by the school, and prepared all the papers I’d need to get my visa the next day.

Waiting for the U-Bahn (Germany’s name for metro/subway) in Kaiserswerth by the school:

After school, I walked along Nordstraße, a very popular shopping street (including grocery stores, bakeries, restaurants, etc) close to my street. An American teacher I had just met at school had told me that German people are very nice if you try to speak German. So, during this walk on Nordstr., as I was passing a Crepe street vendor which smelled so good, I knew that the time was right. I ordered a savory “Käse und Shinken” crepe (Käse means cheese, I thought Shinken meant chicken because it looks close enough, but chicken is actually Huhn and Shinken doesn’t translate to anything according to the translating websites I’ve used…so who knows what I actually ate). I was asked something in German and when I probably looked scared and confused, one of the workers kindly translated to English. They looked at me like “aww this poor confused girl who can’t speak German” in the most pleasant way possible. Since then, I’ve been trying to pull off speaking German until I’m totally helpless (which usually happens after 10 seconds, when either I admit (in German) that I only know a little German, or the person feels bad for me and starts speaking in English). I’m really trying though!!!!

That evening, I decided to step out of my comfort zone (as if moving across the ocean was IN my comfort zone…HA) and go to a “MeetUp” event for expats in Düsseldorf. It’s a monthly meetup for this particular group, and since the holidays are coming, I figured I had no time to waste with trying to be social since I’ll likely have quite a few days ahead where I’m just chilling in my apartment, watching Netflix, reading, and learning German. So, I made my way to Fatty’s Irish Pub (lol) and walked through the bar until I heard people speaking English. Once I found the group, there was a lot of adorable awkwardness where people without friends yet were trying to figure out who to try to be friends with. Between 8 and 10pm, the group grew from about 10 people to at least 50 people. Someone who regularly goes to these MeetUps said that during the summer, there are easily over 100 people who come to the events. Wow. I talked with people from Israel, Austria, India, Ireland, Germany, Italy, and more. One girl from Israel and I became fast friends and we got each other’s info so we can stay in touch 🙂

On my second full day, I had to go and get my visa blah blah blah boring and then I went to the school to attend the Christmas celebration that the math department invited me to. Many of the teachers went to a bar called Fuch’s (I’m not even gonna try to say that aloud) but the math department had it’s own little potluck lunch at the school. There was stew, pizza, salad, bread, a chocolatey-wine dessert, and I had brought little cookie things that I’d gotten from a bakery on Nordstr. the previous day. It was so nice and I’m excited to spend more time with them 🙂

All of these events in my first couple days helped me remember and also realize why the heck I decided to move here. As much as I miss all my people that I love back home, I do think this is what I’m meant to be doing right now.