German stuff

I bought my eurail pass today. They are so expensive, but not as expensive as buying each train ticket individually. I got a pass that will allow me to travel between Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, and Benelux, which is Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg all rolled into one. I also got 100 Euros. The exchange rate is high too. I paid $145.59 for 100 euros, including the $1 service fee. The cash will hopefully get me through the first couple of days, and then I can go to a Deutsche Bank ATM and get money out with no extra fees. My bank has a deal with them that their customers can use Deutsche Bank atms just like their own atms, except that I would have to pay for the exchange rate. So if I spend 1 Euro, that is approximately $1.45 that I am spending here. That really stinks.

Anyway, I am going to Germany and will be studying the German language there. It is really very interesting, since there is a common German language, but an incredible amount of dialects. There are even many dialects within dialects. I have been learning the standard German, so I really hope I understand people when they talk to me. Another possible problem is that people from all over the world are coming to the Goethe Institute in order to learn German. That means that German is the common language, and that most, if not all of the classes will be conducted in German. So in order to communicate to people of other nationalities, we will have to speak to each other in our broken German. It will probably be a point of amusement; you know, it is always good to laugh at yourself.