As Things Fall Into Place

Job: CHECKa
Plane ticket: CHECKa
Apartment: CHECKa
Countdown: T - 25 days!

I still can't believe this is actually happening. Yes, I've been abroad before. Yes, I've even been to Germany before. But this is different! This time I'm actually going to live there. I realize that I'm currently living abroad, and that living the US has certainly thrown me a few challenges here and there. Perhaps my experience here has helped me prepare for this summer.

But while it is true that I have already had to face some of the challenges that are a part of being "the foreigner", the biggest challenge is still to come: this time there is a language barrier. Also, I was anticipating that I would know people in Germany nearby to meet up with on the weekends or that sort of thing. However, every other person that I know that is going to Germany this summer is VERY far away from me, because I am working in Saarland.

So in case you didn't know, Saarland is one of Germany's 16 states, and it is small. Rhode Island is 1.5 times the size of Saarland and has about 20,000 more people. And St. Ingbert, where I will be working, has about a third of the population of Ann Arbor and less than 1/8th of the population of Etobicoke. SMALL! The closer my flight gets, the more nervous I get!

Let me back-track for a second and explain just what it is I will be experiencing this summer.

I am lucky enough to have secured an internship (with the wonderful help of those affiliated with CDS International and the MIISP) at the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering (IBMT) in St. Ingbert, Germany. Specifically, I will be working in the Biohybrid Technology department. To give you a bit of background, here's some info about Fraunhofer from their website:

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the largest organization for applied research in Europe
More than 80 research units, including 59 Fraunhofer Institutes, at different locations in Germany.

The majority of the 17, 000 staff are qualified scientists and engineers.

€ 1.6 billion annual research budget totaling. Of this sum, 1.3 billion euros is generated through contract research. Two thirds of the research revenue is derived from contracts with industry and from publicly financed research projects. Only one third is contributed by the German federal and Länder governments in the form of institutional funding.

Research centers and representative offices in Europe, USA, Asia and in the Middle East.

In 2009 more than 270 scientific, technical and administrative employees (inclusive university chairs) as well as a numer of research students and practical workers were employed at Fraunhofer IBMT. Additionally 55 guest scientists worked at IBMT for a longer period.

So yes, it is going to be a very exciting environment to be a part of! My internship runs from May 31st until August 20th; however, I will actually be in Europe from May 17th until August 29th - a total of 105 days! And being the planning nut that I am (I wonder who I got that from...mom!), I've got the whole summer organized already. Don't worry, I'm really good at improvising if stuff goes wrong or falls apart (so if Iceland has another volcano that feels like erupting, bring it on!), but I like to have a starting point, and here it is:

May 16: Goodbye Canada! j

May 17: Hallo Deutschland! Meet the housemates, get the apartment sorted out, es freut mich, Sie kennen zu lernen....Tschüß! And the family vacation begins!

May 18-26: Travel around Western/Northern Germany and the Netherlands with the fam, hitting hot spots such as Heidelberg, Köln, Amsterdam, Bremen and Hamburg. Hopefully this will help me adjust a bit before I actually have to get into work mode.

May 28-29: Orientation in Berlin with 20-something other Michigan students who will be spending their summers in Germany too! Then book it to Leipzig for a night.

May 30: Twas the night before...mein Praktikum! Get back to the apartment, actually move in, figure out how to get to work, usw.

May 31 - August 20: Crazy internship, improving my German skills, having fun, hopefully taking a few exciting weekend trips (I'm thinking Bonn, the Black Forest, Luxumbourg and Brussels? I'll probably throw in a few other nearby places in Germany/France too)...basically just learning a lot, exploring and having a great time!

August 21: Move out and chill in Frankfurt.

August 22-24: Overnight train from Frankfurt to Wien, and hang there for a bit! Maybe spend a day in Bratislava or Budapest.

August 25-28: Fly to Dublin, bus to Galway, free time until....

August 29: Fly home from Dublin j

It'll be a busy 3 and a half months and I'm sure it will go by waaay too quickly, but I know it will be a brilliant experience. Now that I finally found an apartment near the IBMT, I'm feeling better prepared and more excited! Sure, the nerves kick in whenever I get an email from Germany or think about what my first day at work will be like...but hey, that's not for another 40 days! No need to think about that just yet.