The first month

I woke up this morning, and as I  prepared my oatmeal I thought about the fact that already 25 days have passed, almost one month, since we left home. When I was talking to my friends at home almost everybody told me I shouldn't worry about life in the US because it would be just as life in Germany. Well, I have to say: you couldn't have been more wrong about this, which I was just about to realize. Our adventure started in the great city of Chicago, where we spent a spectacular New Year's Eve by the Lake Michigan.

After having these days of vacation and a seven hours drive we arrived in our new homes for the next months: Athens, Ohio. The week started right away with a series of events introducing us to the University, the city, and living in Athens. The life in Ohio isn't really that much of a culture shock, however, there are little details in my daily life which are simply different. First of all, I have never thought or talked that much about food as I do here. Facing daily struggles as where to find reasonable priced vegetables or "real" bread really caused some difficulties and topics of conversations. Life is Athens is very different than it is in Leipzig, which caused some interesting surprises for me in the first weeks. First of all: there are so many hills around here! It was, despite the hills, nice to walk around campus and explore everything, even if that meant that I would get lost several times. That was, however, an interesting experience as well because I learned how incredibly helpful and polite Americans are; there wasn't one person who hesitated to help me out or guide me the way.

There is one weird thing about Athens, which is the weather. We experienced temperatures from nearly -15C (yes, Celsius, I still don't get Fahrenheit) up to 19C. Snowy Athens, however, is definitively worth seeing. The last couple of days have been pretty warm, and I enjoyed springlike temperatures, although this doesn't made me walk around in shorts and T-Shirts as many of our fellow students did.

Due to the circumstance that Athens is a fairly small town I got to see a lot of it, whether it was Court Street, which is like the main street of Athens with restaurants and bars, many different University buildings or the quite impressive Walmart on E State Street.
Even though life in Ohio and especially in Athens is really different from what I know, it is nice living here. The University, which is spacious to say the least, is simply beautiful and even a short walk around campus is a lovely experience. I am looking to forward to the coming months we will spend in Athens and the opportunity to explore even more the United States.