Saturday, September 06, 2008

Of Foreign Lands and People

On Wednesday the 3rd, we had the welcome and intro day for all of the foreign exchange students studying at the Universität Regensburg this semester/year.

Each student stood up and introduced him- or herself at the start of the day. I jotted down each country of origin named as we went down the rows.

20 different countries were represented in that room! We number a total of about 70-80 individuals.

Here they are listed, roughly from the most members to the least:

CountryApprox. membersCountry (1 member each)
Turkey6Chile
Russia5-6China (Hong Kong)
Czech Republic3-4Korea
Poland4-5Latvia
France4Mexico
Spain3-5Slovenia
England2-3Ukraine
Japan3Venezuela
Italy2Wales
Ireland2(United States)
Slovakia2(Germany)


.... Isn't this amazing??? I am loving it... Soooo many countries here, everybody is so different, but we're all here for, generally speaking, the exact same reason. It is so cool. I don't think I've ever been in the same room with so many nationalities at once. (And no, being American and saying, "Oh, I'm part 15-different-nationalities, just on my mother's side" does not count. You don't live a lifestyle like those nationalities. You are just American. Get over yourself.)

*sigh*. It's just so cool to be here! And I am making friends with all of these people from all over the globe! And I get to hear them speaking their native languages to each other here and there between snippets of German! And it's all just so very interesting!

(Note: "Of Foreign Lands and People" is a real piece written by German composer Robert Schumann, from his Op. 15 collection entitled "Kinderszenen," which translates to "Scenes of Childhood."

You can hear "Of Foreign Lands and People" here: Martha Argerich plays Schumann's Kinderszenen Op. 15. It's the first one you hear.)

3 comments:

Leia =) said...

Ukraine!!
oh, how I love it <33

Just out of the blue, what's the name of the person from Ukraine --do you know him or her?

When I was there, I was actually surprised at the number of people (mostly our Russian-English translators) who had or were planning on studying abroad in Germany. (Yeah, they basically knew about 4 languages: Ukrainian, Russian, English, some German, and some planning on learning even more!)

Wouldn't it be crazy if we actually knew/met some of the same people?

Zhela said...

Unfortunately, all I know is that there is at least one person from Ukraine, and I don't remember from the first day who it was. However, if I find out his/her name, I'll definitely tell you the name =) .

Anonymous said...

Hah. The table is now OK. ^_^

Marcin