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Hello world,

I’ll just start chronologically.

Train from Ravensburg to Ulm, train from Ulm to Stuttgart, plane from Stuttgart to Zagreb, bus from the airport to the main bus station, bus from there to Varazdin, car from the bus station to my flat. I’m there.
Small and cosy, my flat. Although maths wasn’t particularly my strongest subject, I can’t help but realize that my room might not be exactly 40 m² big as it said on the internet; let’s add kitchen and bathroom and we might get near that figure. I don’t care, big enough, bed, sofa, table, Wi-Fi – I will survive here.

My contact person Sanja waits for me while I meet the owner of the flat and drop my stuff at my place, then we’re immediately heading to Gertrud, the DSD (Deutsches Sprachdiplom = German language diploma) coordinator in Varazdin. The door is being opened – “Hi I’m Gertrud did you arrive well come take a seat let’s drink a shot.” My concerns concerning the effects of liquor when inserted in a stomach that is completely empty due to a long trip evaporate after a few moments. We have dinner, we talk, we have more dinner, we keep on talking and have more and more dinner. Impression after the first few hours: I’m full, satisfied, a bit insecure, but looking forward to the forthcoming events.

The town is not entirely new to me (luckily?). I’ve already been here in the late autumn of 2010, participating in a music exchange and doing my job as a drummer in a Ravensburg orchestra (Ravensburg + Varazdin = twin cities). It’s been a while since then, but I still find my way around surprisingly well, at least in the town centre, which again isn’t so surprising because there’s not really much in the town except the centre. Having about 50,000 inhabitants, Varazdin is quite similar to my hometown Ravensburg concerning the size which of course is practical for me because I don’t have to get used to something different. I am particularly glad that I cared about staying in touch with the people I got to know here – during my first week I meet my old friends and colleagues and it is really relieving seeing familiar faces and hearing familiar voices in a town where you don’t know the streets very well and in a country whose language you don’t speak. Strange becomes familiar.

As a happy surprise, my first day of school starts at 11 a.m., I meet a few colleagues and a teacher shows me the building. The room they’re the most proud of is the special room for renewable energy sources, “expensive and extremely modern equipment”, the German teacher who shows me around tells me. Unfortunately he doesn’t have the key for it, I can’t see it.
Now that we’re talking about the building: I find the school really attractive and I’m quite impressed by the high standards especially when it comes to technology. Beamers on the ceiling and a whiteboard in almost every classroom – technical conditions like these are not what I’m used to from my own time in school.

The colleagues don’t know me as Florin in the first days, they know me as “novo Nils” – the “new Nils”, my predecessor who obviously made a (positive) lasting impression. The warmth and kindness of the teachers is really pleasant and makes the communication a lot easier. By now I’m the constant company of the German teachers in their lessons, where I myself don’t do much except for listening and nodding sometimes; due to my relatively little experience with teaching and lessons from the other side of the teacher’s desk, this is really good for me and I slowly get an overview how things go here and what could expect me later. The German knowledge of the students is stunning sometimes, and sometimes it needs work, same as the motivation – I know all that from my years in school, I simply had different foreign languages. Ergo: Until now I haven’t spotted any significant differences between the students here and my own experiences.

My tasks are relatively rarely set and easy at the moment. I offered to continue the German school magazine that Nils initiated last year; however I don’t have any experience with design programs, so I will see who will be able to do that part, and if possible, I will focus on project management and coordination only. The field of possibilities for projects seems very broad here, so I will think about that in the next weeks.

I’m really, really looking forward to the forthcoming time, to meeting people, to exciting and challenging tasks, to better weather and to everything else that might cross my way here.

Vidimo se

Florin.