My first two weeks in Oregon!

 First of all – a big HELLO from Portland, Oregon!!!

Although my journey to Oregon ‘just’ took me 4 weeks, the actual journey to this place already started in July 2013. So after 13 months of applying, organizing, traveling and being patient – I arrived at the place where I will be staying for the next 10 months!!! I finally made it!

On the evening of August 31st 2014 I flew for first time ever into Portland and I think I never had a more beautiful view while landing than here. We passed the snow-capped mountains and I got to see a first glimpse of Oregon’s landscape: mountains, hills and most of all: TREES!!! I think I have never seen so many trees in my life. There are so many different kinds all over and they are so high – unbelievable.  Stepping out of the beautiful airport was for the first time in weeks surprisingly pleasant: no heat, no humidity, just fresh air and lovely warm temperatures. I was just in Portland for a few minutes and I already absolutely loved it and felt so comfortable!
Kathryn, a lady from the international department of my university picked Philipp and me up and brought us to our host families.
I live around 30 minutes away from the airport, on a hill – a very steep hill! When we made our way up there I was very excited and giggled the whole time. For the upcoming year I would live in the middle of a beautiful neighborhood, on a hill, right between hundreds of high trees. To me this is quiet special because where I am from, in Berlin, it is very flat and even though we do have forests they just look so different. Here where I live, almost every street is going steep up- or downhill at some point. That is definitely something new!

I love how you can always see the Cascade Range on the horizon

A street very close to my house, in reality it looks so much steeper!

View out of my window… Yep, I see trees 🙂

I live in West Linn which is a small suburban city just south of Portland. The host family who is so kind to open their home for me is family Newton: mom Susan, dad Patrick and their two sweet daughters Tori (9) and Emily (8) as well as their two small dogs called Tinkerbell and Rover.
I had such a lovely welcome! Everyone was excited and it was great meeting them for the first time. I am glad that the family is so open, easy to talk to and I felt really comfortable right away. I haven’t met Patrick yet because he is away due to personal reasons, but with the three ladies of the house I am having every day a good and fun time. I am very glad that I got such a lively and welcoming host family.

Sign that was hanging outside the door when I arrived! Great welcome!

Arrival Day – Philipp, Kathryn and my two host sisters Tori and Emily

German Chocolate Cake for my arrival – it was delicious!

They live in a big house with different small stories, a few terraces on different levels and a cute garden. It is right in the woods and reminds me of a really cool tree house. I got a wonderful spacious room and most importantly since I will probably spend there almost 1/3 of my stay: my bed is super comfortable and I sleep amazing!

My host family’s house… hidden in the trees

Now, since my first arrival almost 2 weeks have passed and there is so much to tell! First of all: I settled in very good! My university only starts end of September which means that I have plenty of time to get all my organizational duties done. Yet, I get really stressed with taking care of all these important documents that’s why I tried to tick off my to-do list as quick as possible and started right away:

Paperwork… Trying to be organized

American cell phone number
After traveling through the country with a German number and always hoping to find somewhere free WIFI, I finally got my American cell phone number! The process of getting one was not difficult at all and so far I am very happy with the service of AT&T (as I mentioned I live in the woods, so it was important for me to find a service with good coverage). Now I am all connected and can call, text and surf in the internet as much and often as I want to.

First meetings at Marylhurst University
I mentioned earlier that my university will only start September 29th which gives me another 2 weeks from now on. But of course some organization needs to get done before I can actually start studying. Just 3 days after my arrival I met my college coordinator Rahi for the first time at Marylhurst. The first impression of the campus is incredible. The university is actually really small with only 2,000 students, but the buildings and the actual campus are beautiful!!!

First arrival at Marylhurst

The main administration building

The campus is beautiful!

Rahi was really helpful with getting me organized and gave me many tips how to apply for all the different forms and what I needed to do the upcoming weeks. He also gave me a link where I could find all the different courses that Marylhurst offers for the fall semester. I was supposed to have a closer look at it at home and decide which classes sounded interesting to me.
That’s what I did and went back on Monday, September 8th to choose my courses! Unfortunately they don’t offer any tourism related classes nor languages nor general business classes. So I decided to go with human and cultural studies because I think that this is very interesting and will not only help me to understand costumers in my job better but also people in my daily life and on travels.
So far my schedule looks like that: (it is not all approved yet, so there is a possibility that there will be minor changes)

I am very happy and satisfied with this schedule and I am looking forward seeing what an American university is like. After choosing classes I went to the administration building, to register the classes, get my student ID card and dealt with some other organizational documents. I am all ready for college now. Everything is set and I only need to check which books are necessary for the classes. The next step will be attending my very first class on Tuesday, September 30st at Marylhurst University. I am sure I will have a great first university experience there!

My student ID card

Social Security Card
On Thursday, September 4th Philipp’s roommate Ali was so kind to take Philipp and me to Oregon City to the Social Security Administration Office to apply for our Social Security Card. The number on that card is the key to basically everything in this country. You need it to get a driver’s license, to work and to open a bank account. So it was important to get that done quickly. The administration office was just like probably everywhere else in the world: taking a number, staring at the screen for a looong time until the boring wait gets to an end. For us it was around 1 ½ hours wait which was not too bad I think. The officer was really nice and helpful and Philipp and I had all the necessary documents with us. He put in all the important data and told us in the end that it will take 7 – 10 days until we get our Social Security Card via mail. I was glad that it went so smooth since other participants of the program had trouble with it.
And big surprise: on Tuesday, September 9th I already received my personal Social Security Card. That made me really happy because now I was actually able to continue ticking off my to-do list!

Bank account
I also need an American bank account for mainly paying my car insurance and later on also to get my income once I start working in January. After asking some people for recommendations, I decided to open a bank account at ‘Chase’. I was lucky that a very nice employee informed me about all the different options and helped to get through the process of opening the account. Fortunately I had all necessary documents and so it went all very fast and without any problems. I opened a checking account with a debit card and it is for students without any fees. Great!

Cars, cars, cars…
This was by far the most difficult topic for me. Since public transportation is not like in Germany, we are required to buy a car. Although compared to other American cities, Portland has an excellent public transportation system, I still live a little bit outside (on that hill, remember?). The next bus stop is around 1 mile (and 100 meters difference in altitude) away which will make it rather difficult to walk their easily in the rain, snow, ice… That is why I decided I have to buy a car!
You need to know that I do have a driver’s license since 5 years but never owned a car. My Mama was always so nice that she let me take her car 🙂 So I know how to drive a car, but I don’t know anything about it. Even thinking about buying a car made me feel sick and insecure. Many people gave me the advise to check on craigslist.com and that’s what I did for a few days. Thank god there exists internet so even though I am over 8,000 kilometers away from home I could still talk with my parents about the different cars I found in the internet. I could discuss with them if I should consider them or not. Thank you again Mama & Papa for helping me so, so, so much, giving me advises and supporting me even though I was frustrated and annoyed so fast!!!
After finding a few potential cars, communicating with some owners and then again not working out a deal, I was looking at two different cars Tuesday, September 9th. My host mom Susan drove me. The first one was a total fail, so we didn’t waste too much time and just left right away.
The second one looked a lot more promising! The owner was very nice, the car was just like they described it in the internet and I took a test drive. What can I say? It just felt right. I saw myself driving through Portland, Oregon and maybe even some neighboring states with that little car. It is in good condition for an 11-year old vehicle and to me it totally fulfills my needs in a car that I will only drive for 10 months anyways. I bet you are very curious now what kind of car it is and here we are:

My first own car!!!

Posing with Emily

A silver Ford Focus from 2003. I felt super comfortable from the first second I drove it and I think this is a good car for me. In Germany I was driving a Ford Ka, which is even a little bit smaller than this Ford Focus, but still comparable. It is automatic though which I am actually not used to drive with. But it is very easy and I think in just a few days my right hand will just stay at the steering wheel and not grab to the middle to shift the gear 😉 Also my left foot can hang out now and have a one year holiday!
Thanks to Susan who was a HUGE help and made it possible to fix the deal and all the documents that are required.
Let me tell you, I was so happy driving that little car, not just one car, but MY FIRST OWN CAR!

Driver’s License
On Thursday, September 11th we went to the DMV (Department for Motor Vehicles) to get my driver’s license. I had to fill out a form and discuss a little bit with the lady about my German driver’s license. She wanted to keep it which I was not too happy about, but that’s the law in Oregon: you can only have one driver’s license at a time. So now I gave it away and I really hope I will see it back home again! I paid $5 to take the written driver’s test and had to answer 28 out of 35 multiple choice questions correctly. Even though I studied for the test, some questions were still a bit tricky and confusing. Long story short, I MADE IT! I was super happy that it already worked on my first go! After taking a vision test, a photo and paying another $25 for the actual license, I got my American driver’s license!!! Yay!!! So far it’s only a piece of paper, but soon they will send me the real deal! I was so excited! My host family and I celebrated this joyful event with a little picnic with some sandwiches from Subway at the beautiful Clackamas River. It was such a beautiful sunny day and we all enjoyed that lovely afternoon!

Got my driver’s license!!!

In front of the DMV, the American and Oregon flag

Susan and the girls during our picnic

Beautiful spot at the Clackamas River

Tori, Emily and myself

Fun at the river

Scenic bridge over Clackamas River

Trying to hold these crazy monekys

Car insurance and registration
Now I finally had it all together: a car, a driver’s license, a bank account and a Social Security Number. Ready to get a car insurance! Fortunately I got a great recommendation for which insurance company to pick from another participant’s host family. I called the company and the employee was really helpful and explained everything very patiently to me –  a person who has no idea about insurances, cars or anything related to that. We found the right policy for me and after checking and verifying my existence for a couple of times, it was all set and I was ALMOST ready to drive my car. Two tiny things still prevented me from driving: a check at the DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality) and the registration at the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles). The actual check at the DEQ went very quick, like 3 minutes, but I had to wait for around 30 minutes until it was my turn. They simply inspect the cars for the given standards to reduce the smog, air toxics and greenhouse gases in Oregon. Actually this is a very great institution and we do have something similar in Germany as well.

Queuing at the DEQ

Next and LAST stop was the DMV where I had to fill out another form, pay more money to register my car, get a new title as well as my Oregon license plates!!! I was so excited to hold those in my hands! It was the final act after applying two weeks for several documents. I felt like crossing the finish line after a long race!
When we came back home, I immediately grabbed the toolbox and started to screw those license plates to my car. It was complete and all set! I felt so relived. The past two weeks I have been thinking about all these little steps I had to take before I could eventually drive my car. On September 13th 2014 I was a legal driver with an American driver’s license, a car, insurance and my very own registered Oregon license plates. Hurray!

The car all set with my licence plate. Ready to go!!!

What else did I do?
Besides all these things I needed to tick off my to-do list, I honestly didn’t see too much of my new surrounding yet. It was quiet difficult without a car, but I still got the opportunity to have a sneak peak of downtown Portland last week. Philipp’s Arabian host brother Ali took us with his car and showed us a little bit of the city. We only walked around for a short time, but it was already enough to say that I absolutely love it and I seriously can’t wait to go back and discover many places. Fortunately I have another 10 months ahead to explore and find all the neat and interesting places!!!

A sneak peak of Portland

Willamette River running through Portland

Beautiful park at the banks of Willamette River

A rainbow 🙂

Last weekend another CBYX participant, Korbi, invited Philipp and me to his host family’s BBQ party. They live around 20 minutes away from here, also in a beautiful area of a suburban town outside of Portland. The evening was great with lovely families, great food and drinks and a funny karaoke experience in the end. The three Germans were singing 99 Luftballons… we tried our best! It was great catching up and we sure all enjoyed the nice evening.

On Friday September 13th, Philipp’s host mom’s neighbor took us to Mount Angel, a small village south of Portland. It is famous for it’s legendary Oktoberfest!!! So of course, Korbi, Philipp and I – the three Germans, had to go! To me this was also a new experience since I have never been to the original Oktoberfest in Munich and in Berlin we don’t celebrate traditional festivals like these. But Korbi is from Bavaria and therefore also had his traditional Lederhosen with him. It was so funny seeing lots of Americans wearing Lederhosen, Dirndl, soccer jerseys of German teams or basically everything that had kind of a relation to Germany.

Korbi, Philipp and I at the Oktoberfest in Mount Angel (yes, there were several cameras…)

That’s how the Americans dressed: Lederhosen & Dirndl… Way to go!

There were food stands all around downtown which sold more or less German food and in those big tents, bands were playing German music and people drank German beer. We chatted to some really cool Americans and I kept explaining everyone that this is not what Germany actually is like. Not everyone is wearing Dirndl, Lederhosen and is listening to this kind of music. In my 22-year long German life I never experienced something like that, but now I really want to visit the authentic Oktoberfest in Munich next year because that was a really fun night!!! But then I am definitely wearing a Dirndl!!!

Left the band is playing, and all these people are following the instructions. He said: ‘It’s Schunkeltime’

The event was sponsored by Lufthansa

I don’t know…

… what that is!!! Typical German? I doubt it!

Since I had no car, I was walking sometimes and so here are just some impressions of the neighborhood and what I saw on my walks.

Cutest little Lemonade stand ever… just like the movies!

The first two weeks here in Portland have been fantastic, exciting and stressful at the same time. Looking back though, it all went smooth and quiet quick and everything from my to-do list is ticked off!!! The upcoming months I will get of course new challenges, but currently I am just so glad that I managed to get all this done. Now I am finally independent. No one needs to bring me or pick me up and I can go on trips and discover the surrounding.

1st level completed – arriving, settling and organizing: check!

Anneke