Unterwegs in Minden

So life is slowly starting to find a rhythm and I'm diving into German life. 

One of the streets in the Minden city center

The first or second day I was here, we had to go in to town so that I could register with the town hall as a resident and what not and then go back the next day to register with the federal government for my official visa card and the like. Fingerprinted for the first time! But while we were in the city center I went school supply shopping with my host mom and sisters.

Got a couple of notebooks and some folder type things. Odd note, the hole-punching system is completely different here. In the US we have thee more or less equidistant holes, but in Europe there are almost always 4 holes in the paper, but there only need to be two prongs to set it in. I also needed a bathing suit, because I completely forgot one. (Maybe I didn't pack so well after all!) My host sisters helped me out with that one, because I haven't the foggiest clue what is normal and what isn't here.

My shopping spree

But other than shopping, my family kept me pretty busy in the few days before school started. My sisters and I went swimming a couple of times in the Mittellandkanal, which is only, like, 3 minutes away from the house on foot. We also went to a lake in Hannover on a day that was practically ripped from Virginia. The weather was really hot, apparently it was the hottest day of the year in Germany. But for me, it felt like home during the summer. Not going to be the case in December, I don't think.

We also went water skiing, because my host sisters hadn't had a chance yet this summer and I had only ever done it once. The set up was really new to me; I'm not even sure if we have this type of water skiing in the US. So rather than being pulled around a lake by a boat or anything, there is a ski lift type structure that you can see in the picture below.

You sit at the beginning of the boat house and they hand you a handle, like in normal water skiing, and the handle gets hooked on to a pulley system that goes around the entire lake. It pulls you the entire way around (not that I ever made it that far) and was pretty fun! Every time that I went around I got a little bit farther and by my last round I almost made the entire curve. That was the hardest part, the curve. Definitely worth it and I'm glad I got the chance to do it!

About 3 seconds before I plunged into the lake and had to swim to the side