Hello everyone!! I must appologize for not writing more on my last post. Time was short and internet was expensive. Anyway, most of us arived safely in Amsterdam on Wednesday morning. Because of the plane crash in Toronto, two of our number were delayed in Chicago and Philly and weren't able to make it in time for our flight out. I think they're both here now but I'm not really sure.
Our conference in Elspeet in the Netherlands went very well. We were in a remote area at a Mennonite retreat center surrounded by other North Americans. It didn't feel like we had left home at all. I'm still not sure of everyone's name but it's getting better and there is always time for formalities later. The last night there we had a party to kick off the year and I must admit, I never knew Mennonites could dance like that. I have a five second video that I might be able to upload later once I figgure out how to use these German Mac's :) Ryan, you would love it here. Saturday morning the whole German/Swiss group got ready to leave to take a bus to the train station. And we waited....and we waited.....and we waited....finally we were able to contact the bus company to find that they had marked our schedule down wrong and the bus would, in fact, be late(er than it already was). By the grace of God we made it to the station on time. The train arrived just as we were reaching the platform and everyone, fortunately, made it on.
We traveled to Frankfurt together and then split onto seperate trains. I must say, standing on a train platform alone, not knowing the language, and not knowing what awaits you at the other end of the line is one of the lonliest feelings I have ever experienced. I never found my seet on the train but I found one that wasn't taken and took it.
Tomas Steffan picked me up at the train station in Gießen and took me to my appartment. It's on the third floor of the Campus für Christus - Zentrale Deutchland (Campus Crusade for Christ - Central Germany) building which also houses the GAiN offices (they are, in fact, the same organization). So....for those of you who have my work address and want my home address....it's the same. For those of you who don't have it but want it:
David King
c/o GAiN / Campus für Christus
Am Unteren Rain 2
35394 Giessen
GERMANY
I'm sharing the appartment with Tonja, a sweet girl from central Russia who is leaving in a week, and another guy whose name I have yet to pronounce let alone spell. He's from Germany and won't be staying much longer although I'm not sure how long that will be. And I just found out today that there may be another girl moving in but I don't know her name or anything about her. The appartment is really more of a college dorm type arrangement. There are four rooms that share a common kitchen and bath but each bedroom is locked seperately, the main door is rarely locked. There is a phone that all four rooms share and if you want that number it's 011-49-641-97518-16 the 49 is the country code and it might need one or two zero's in front of it. The 641 is the city code and it might need a zero of its own but I don't think so. If you want to call, though, wait a few days until I get a handy (read cell phone). Chris (Tomas's boss) heard that I didn't have one today so tomorrow we're going downtown to get me one and register me at the city offices as a foreign resident.
Tomas (the guy from the train station) is my direct boss and he and his family have somewhat adopted me. I went to church with them on Sunday morning. It's very similar to South Hutch Mennonite only smaller, in German, and in a building that's being renovated (wait.....that's the same). They normally have lunch as a church afterwards but most of their members were out of town on vacation and so they didn't do the meal part. Tomas and his wife felt so bad about that that they took me out to eat (around 2) and then in the evening we went to an ice cream party. I'm not sure who was hosting it or why but it was fun none the less.
This was my first day at work and while I thought there might be some people here who spoke english.....I was wrong. Everyone speaks it and Everyone wants to get better at it. I fear that my grasp of German might be a little further away because of that but Tomas says there are some night classes in town and he thinks they offer German as a second language there. Other than that it was a normal first day of work. I didn't get much of anything done and I kept other people from getting their stuff done. Oh well....such is life.
I would love to tell you more but I have to go cook supper. I find that I eat less when I'm cooking for myself. I would like to cook more but there's no one to help me eat it and so it's not worth making something big just to have it go to waste.
I love you all.
David
Our conference in Elspeet in the Netherlands went very well. We were in a remote area at a Mennonite retreat center surrounded by other North Americans. It didn't feel like we had left home at all. I'm still not sure of everyone's name but it's getting better and there is always time for formalities later. The last night there we had a party to kick off the year and I must admit, I never knew Mennonites could dance like that. I have a five second video that I might be able to upload later once I figgure out how to use these German Mac's :) Ryan, you would love it here. Saturday morning the whole German/Swiss group got ready to leave to take a bus to the train station. And we waited....and we waited.....and we waited....finally we were able to contact the bus company to find that they had marked our schedule down wrong and the bus would, in fact, be late(er than it already was). By the grace of God we made it to the station on time. The train arrived just as we were reaching the platform and everyone, fortunately, made it on.
We traveled to Frankfurt together and then split onto seperate trains. I must say, standing on a train platform alone, not knowing the language, and not knowing what awaits you at the other end of the line is one of the lonliest feelings I have ever experienced. I never found my seet on the train but I found one that wasn't taken and took it.
Tomas Steffan picked me up at the train station in Gießen and took me to my appartment. It's on the third floor of the Campus für Christus - Zentrale Deutchland (Campus Crusade for Christ - Central Germany) building which also houses the GAiN offices (they are, in fact, the same organization). So....for those of you who have my work address and want my home address....it's the same. For those of you who don't have it but want it:
David King
c/o GAiN / Campus für Christus
Am Unteren Rain 2
35394 Giessen
GERMANY
I'm sharing the appartment with Tonja, a sweet girl from central Russia who is leaving in a week, and another guy whose name I have yet to pronounce let alone spell. He's from Germany and won't be staying much longer although I'm not sure how long that will be. And I just found out today that there may be another girl moving in but I don't know her name or anything about her. The appartment is really more of a college dorm type arrangement. There are four rooms that share a common kitchen and bath but each bedroom is locked seperately, the main door is rarely locked. There is a phone that all four rooms share and if you want that number it's 011-49-641-97518-16 the 49 is the country code and it might need one or two zero's in front of it. The 641 is the city code and it might need a zero of its own but I don't think so. If you want to call, though, wait a few days until I get a handy (read cell phone). Chris (Tomas's boss) heard that I didn't have one today so tomorrow we're going downtown to get me one and register me at the city offices as a foreign resident.
Tomas (the guy from the train station) is my direct boss and he and his family have somewhat adopted me. I went to church with them on Sunday morning. It's very similar to South Hutch Mennonite only smaller, in German, and in a building that's being renovated (wait.....that's the same). They normally have lunch as a church afterwards but most of their members were out of town on vacation and so they didn't do the meal part. Tomas and his wife felt so bad about that that they took me out to eat (around 2) and then in the evening we went to an ice cream party. I'm not sure who was hosting it or why but it was fun none the less.
This was my first day at work and while I thought there might be some people here who spoke english.....I was wrong. Everyone speaks it and Everyone wants to get better at it. I fear that my grasp of German might be a little further away because of that but Tomas says there are some night classes in town and he thinks they offer German as a second language there. Other than that it was a normal first day of work. I didn't get much of anything done and I kept other people from getting their stuff done. Oh well....such is life.
I would love to tell you more but I have to go cook supper. I find that I eat less when I'm cooking for myself. I would like to cook more but there's no one to help me eat it and so it's not worth making something big just to have it go to waste.
I love you all.
David
posted by davidweaverking at 7:40 PM
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