Motorbike ride and other nonsense

So today was my first official day of organized education I guess you could say. The three of us Americans (Ryan, Grace and me) are taking a two week long crash course with Beth Hejl. BUT FIRST let me talk about how I got there. 

Since there isn't really any place to park downtown, Dagmar (Joern's mom; pronounced dak-mahr) took me on her motorbike (der Motorroller). I know what your thinking, it was probably really awkward and, yes I had to hold on to her hips. Yeah, sure it was weird at first, but once we got rolling, it became more terrifying than anything and I had no choice but to hold on or become a smear on the road. It was also horrifying to turn around corners because I didn't know if I would throw her off balance if I leaned into them, or if I would throw her off balance if I did nothing. Basically, it felt like if I shifted the slightest, definite doom would come to us. Not to mention the insane slopes Esslingen has. Even on a regular bike, I'm still getting used to going down hills fast enough to keep up with Joern, but I now can say that I would much rather take the bicycle down than one with a motor attached to it; however, going up the hill required no effort at all, besides the effort not to die, that is. 

Anyways, before we made the trek back up the hill, we arrived at the Volkshochschule (Translated "peoples' high school", but rather is a place to take private classes) where I met Ryan, the other boy who is on his leg of the exchange. Ryan has been here for three weeks already, I arrived last week and Grace arrives today, so she wasn't at the crash course but she will be tomorrow. First we sat and talked for two hours about the German language and such. Ms. Hejl was surprised that Ryan and I knew so much German, so the curriculum she had prepared for us proved not to be so helpful as it was stuff like numbers and letters. She determined that we need to work on noun prepositions and articles. Moving forward, we left he Volkshochschule and walked around downtown. I thought I had seen everything, but she showed us the Stolpersteine or "stumbling stones" that can be found around Esslingen. Die Stolpersteine are cobble stones that can be found around Esslingen dedicated to those affected by world war ii, either murdered (ermordet) or escaped (entkam). After walking around some more and learning some history that I didn't know before, we found that we had 45 minutes to burn so we went into Das Es! to get some coffee. At noon, I got picked up and came home by the motorbike. 

For lunch we had Roesti (a Swiss potato dish), Rotkraut (red cabbage), Erbsen (peas) and Quark (curd cheese that's more like yoghurt). 

Tonight I get to go grocery shopping which yes, don't judge me, I am excited for. 

Heute ist der 6 Maerz 2017

guten Nachmittag,

Nat