So, that you have an idea of how our day runs, I thought I'd let you peek into a day of our life.  This week the alarm has been going off at 5:45 am.  I slowly wake up and then get ready for language school while Hunter gets ready for work.  We eat breakfast, Hunter packs a lunch and I pack a snack and take a hot drink with me.  10 minutes before time for the bus to run, I leave the house and tell Hunter I'll see him at 12:45.  Living next to the bus station is nice.  I catch the bus at 7:20 and ride it into Rummingen where I switch to another bus that will take me into Lorrach for school.  I spend my time on the bus in prayer....kind of like prayer walking but riding the bus instead.  In Rummingen, the bus is waiting for me and so I cross the road and hop on.  This bus is very full with adults going into Lorrach for work and school children.  Again, I spend the bus ride in prayer.  Once I arrive at the bus station in Lorrach, I have 45 minutes before school starts.  So, I prayer walk the city.  I am amazed at how much walking I can get in, in about 30 minutes.  I make sure I am on time to class because Germans hate tardiness.  (Thus the reason I've been arriving an hour early.  One day the bus was late due to traffic which was due to construction on the highway, and it made me 10 minutes late to class.  Uhg!  The look I got from the teacher.  Next week I'll go back to taking the later bus and see if it is running on time.  If not, I do more of the early rising.  If I take the later bus, then I arrive in Lorrach with just enough time to walk to school, unpack, settle in and say a few words with my classmates before school starts).






     So I arrive at school and get settled in for class.  Class is ALL in German.  Every once in a while the teacher will explain something in English for hard to understand concepts.  Those are rare.  I take LOTS of notes.  There are about 10 different nationalities represented in class.  There are five boys and 14 girls in class.  Tables in class are arranged in a horseshoe. I sit on the right hand side of the horseshoe second seat (closest to the teacher and whiteboard).  The wall across from me is made up of windows and has a nice view of the city.    We only use the overhead lights when it is cloudy outside.  This is to preserve energy.  The teacher will teach a while, then we will do some kind of activity and then the teacher will teach some more.  We have a 20 minute break at about 10:30.  This is enough time to leave the building and either take a smoke (which many of my classmates do), run and grab something to eat (which about half the class does), or just socialize outside which many do.  Then we MUST be back in class on time.  The teacher will lecture some more and we'll do some sort of activity in the afternoon and the teacher will lecture some more and then there will be a dictation which will be graded.  Finally comes the homework.  Practice what we've learned, learning all the new words with their articles (der, die or das) and multiple pages out of our workbook.

    So, class is over at 12:45.  I am happy to see Hunter between classes.  We have time to quickly update each other on what our mornings were like and hand off the German-English dictionary.  Hunter's school day begins.  And his class runs very similarly to mine.  His class will run from 1:00 until 5:00.  He'll get home around 6:00.  With class being over, I'll grab a snack and work my written homework.  Catch the bus back home and work on more homework.  It is a pretty busy day.  In the evening there is dinner, small group time, shopping etc.  It may be busy but that is okay as long as I'm learning something.