Tourist Info Desk

Welcome to Fernweh, a blog concerning the (mis)adventures of one Fulbrighter during a year spent in Europe teaching English.
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Monday, June 7, 2010

Und endlich...!

I got an e-mail this morning (in perfect English...huh) from my Betreuungslehrerin (mentoring teacher) in Germany this morning out of the blue. Apparently, Fulbright received my grant authorization on time...

Anyway, on to the important stuff. Here is the text of the e-mail:
Hi Jennifer,

I'm Katrin, your Betreuungslehrerin for your time as a teaching
assistant in Thuringia.

I'll send you further information about your assistantship in a few
days, because we are really busy at the moment with exams etc.

I just wanted to let you know that we're really happy about getting a
TA for the next school year and that I'm very much looking forward to
working with you.

Best regards,
Katrin
The address at the end of the e-mail indicates that the school is in Jena, specifically a little north of the city.

View Fachschule in a larger map
Jena itself is university city (yay!) and the second largest city in Thüringen after Erfurt. It has museums, an orchestra, and several unis, but most importantly, the Christmas market looks brilliant! Wikipedia article here. I'm just really happy that I'm not going to be out in the middle of nowhere.

Speaking of which, the school (which has a website here) seems to be a vocational school for agrarian and household economics, agriculture, etc. Hmm, I can see I'll need to brush up on my German agrarian vocabulary. The school website doesn't seem to even mention English...but I assume they have English classes, since I'm, y'know, going there. Right?

That's really all I know for now. It's just a blessing to have a concrete answer at last.

2 comments:

  1. oooh, congrats! Jena is supposed to be a fun spot! Our downstairs neighbors are from Jena and have TONS of contacts there. I think he used to be a prof at the Uni in Jena before they were able to move to the west in the 80's. He still goes to his same dentist there, lol!

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  2. I just looked at the map and OH MY GOD -- you will not be that far from Fulda and there is supposed to be a great collection of early medieval books - many in their original bindings!!! I will have to do more research on where and how to access it so you could -- if you have time -- take advantage of it!

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