My Mission Begins (Part Two): Settling In- My First Week In Dresden!

So, it has been just over a week since I arrived in Dresden and it has been a pretty crazy week of trying to settle in! The first 3 days I stayed with my German friend Lysann who was a study abroad student in my Masters earlier this year. She has been a godsend as she was my interpreter for all my important registration stuff e.g. temporary residents permits, bank account, health insurance, buying a mobile phone etc. So those first few days were a bit hectic and didn't really take in much of the sites... also, I was onto my 8th, 9th and 10th days living out of my suitcase and was very quickly running out of clean clothes... On the Thursday night was the first "International Student Pub Crawl" and the first time of meeting new people. Everyone was pretty nice and were kind enough to talk English to me and not leave me out which was good! All the other International Students are from Europe so they all know their native language, german and english pretty well. Went to an awesome club called Rosis. I advise you to check out the website- It's in German but its fun... The first two songs I heard in there that night were "Girls" by the Beastie Boys and the "Hotel Yorba" by The White Stripes.. I was loving it...

I moved into my apartment last Saturday (I got into Dresden on the Wednesday evening) and met the guy Ben whose room I'm taking. He drove up from Lake Constance with his two friends to help me settle in which was very nice of them (and to give me a good introduction into drinking in Germany haha). Ben is doing a 6 month internship in southern Germany in his home town which borders Germany, Switzerland and Austria. When it starts snowing I'm going to head down and ski with him... 20mins drive from his house is the Swiss Alps... Boom..

Lots of text in this blog so I'm gonna throw in some photos of my apartment!

So this is my room! (The Canadian flag in Ben's). Note how massive the bed is... I woke up lengthways the other morning and couldn't touch the edge...I like...

This is the lounge/dining/kitchen on the right. This is looking from out my bedroom door.

This is the view once opening the door. The bathroom is directly in front then the two doors on the left are my bedroom (closest to bathroom) and my housemate Michi (who has lived here for a few years and gets back from Summer break today- I haven't met him yet).

So.. yup, thats my swingin' German pad. Its nice, and it was good to finally do a load of washing and settle in and buy groceries. 

This week has been "O-Week" but without the name. There have been international student parties pretty much every night and I have made it to a few of them. Hanging out with some great crew and picking up a bit of German as well. It's amazing how quickly you can pick up stuff when it is literally all around you. These are a few of my new friends:

Another fun thing I did was tour of Feldschlößchen Brauerie (Feldschlößchen Brewery). The translation of Feldschlößchen literally means little castle in the field. The brewery tour (my 3rd for the year!) was good. It was all in german but learnt some new words and it was all you could drink for an hour and a half afterwards with some bread and spreads. This was fun, the "bier" was good and I had a good time with some new people:

 "Prost!"- cheers!

All in all it was a good week. The first few days were a bit sucky, I think i was just very tired and hadn't met many people yet and worried with the language barrier. But now feeling pretty good about being here. I start my classes next week so I'll fill you in on how they go! And also I will make a post about the town and old buildings that are here and very beautiful!

Now it's off to Aldi to do some grocery shopping! :oP

Tschüs!