Summer 2014 : My Two Weeks at IIK (Institute for International Communication) Düsseldorf

So hello! It's nice to write something again, I realize my muse has been up and down these days, and also I have tons to do..

Finally I decided to write something in English, because some people ask me to. I really want to write in a few languages, but sadly no time.

Okay, I know now it's 2015, but I want to throw myself a bit into the past before I forget about it. So for you who didn't know, fortunately I got a chance to fly back to my second home last year (2014). I actually wanted to go in 2013, but there was visa problem so I had to postpone my adventure. And finally I got my visa in the next year, and decided to stay for a month. Let me tell you a secret, I was allowed to go back to Germany after I had an agreement with my parents to do some German course, because they didn't want me to do only "fun".

After searching some information about some places/institutions, I finally decided to have a two-week intensive course in IIK-Düsseldorf. IIK stands for Institut für Internationale Kommunikation, or in English, Institut for International Communication (it's not difficult to translate, right?). They actually had really good offer for another long-term courses, but I only have 1 month time and the only program possible for me was the 2-week course.

I already signed up before my departure, but I still need to pay and the best way was to pay it direct. So on my very first day, my host father and I went to IIK, and also asked a few questions. To determine my level, I needed to make a placement test, and I remember I took the placement test with Valentine's computer in Switzerland (thank you for that, Valentine!) I got the result a few days later, and fortunately I got the morning class. I prefer to have morning class (from 9 to 12) because I would finish the class early and could do something else later in the afternoon.

My class began on June 30th and for two weeks. Do you know what the tiring part was? It's the journey from Haltern am See to Düsseldorf. As you see from the map below, the distance was about 80km (said Google Maps), and I need about 1 hour and more to get there. So everyday, for 2 weeks, I felt like student again, waking up between 5-6, had breakfast (I showered the night before), and then went to the train station with my bicycle. I had two options of train, the first one departed at 6.43, but I didn't need to change. The second one departed at 7.07, but I needed to wait for about 20 minutes in Essen. Most of the time I took the early one, and arrived 1 hour earlier hahaha ^^ (typical Asia, so diligent :D) I could also take the train at 7.43, but I would be late for a few minutes because it took around 10 minutes by S-Bahn from Düsseldorf train station to IIK-Düsseldorf.

long long journey..

option 1

option 2

And the way back to home also needed a bit of struggle, because I needed to leave the class immediately after it finished, if I missed the S-Bahn, I would have to wait 1 hour for the train, and would be late for lunch.

So can you feel my tiring 2 weeks?

But to be honest, I slept most of the time on the train, hahaha. The tiring part was only the train part (I spend around 3 hours/day on the train). Beside that, it was an amazing 2 weeks with IIK-Düsseldorf!

Because our class was only for 2 weeks and the holiday hasn't started yet in some other countries, our class had only a few people. At first I guess we had 9 students, but 2 students got transferred to lower class. So there were 7 of us for a few days, until one student got transferred to the regular class because he would stay for 2 months.

But the smaller the class, the more attention we got from the teacher. From Monday to Wednesday, our teacher was Sarah, and for Thursday and Friday we had Inna.

The part I love the most was I got the chance to meet some more friends from different countries. So in our tiny class, we had 2 people from Poland, 2 from China, 1 from USA, and me! We had fun even though we barely knew each other at first, but then we got closer and closer during the days, and decided to have reunion a few years later (maybe 5 more years?) in Bali :D :D :D

One day we had lunch together in Japanese Restaurant :)