Culture Shock

Second day is the hardest, was what my host mother said. It also happened to fall on my first day of school. I think this is an unfavorable condition, personally...
I went to school at 8 and the people are really very friendly. Except they have all known each other their entire lives (you stay in one class all day) and are not quick to let you in. This is what I was told by one girl in my class who came two years ago. She is Austrian born but raised in the United States. This is good for me, because I sort of have an ally, but horrible because people may think I can't speak german if she is the only one I talk to.
The first thing that went wrong is clearly the language barrier. My homeroom teacher was telling us very important things and I knew nothing. It was just too fast and perhaps a bit of Viennese dialect. Then there was this list showing which classes you were registered for, and I wasn't in anything! My homeroom teacher said vaguely she would work on this with me later.
I didn't realize when a teacher came in later that we were having a lesson. For one thing, all the students spoke among themselves, and she just kind of joked around sitting on a desktop. I was told this is how all the classes are. Kind of contradictory to what I was taught, big surprise, definitely. Anyway I discovered this was a psychology class and I then understood many of the themes she was discussing, that was very good.
School was then over and I chilled until about 5 when everyone came home. My hostmother began asking me important questions about what my homeroom teacher had told me, and I just couldn't give her the answer because I did not know. I could feel my face turning extremely red from embarrasement and then I also neeeded to cry urgently. The thing that most people know about german is that it always sounds very harsh, and even when they speak english it is also harsh sounding.
My host mother was trying to tell me that the next day I had to go to the AFS german class. However, I did not sign up for this because I was told it was very basic, and she was told it was levelled. And then she asked why are you crying, and I later realized she became gentler here and told me that I was having culture shock and that we would slow down. We took a walk as a family and they showed me the way to the Strassenbahn (streetcar) that I would take to my class, which I could sign up for there.

And today? It was very lovely. Much, much, better. I understood many things in school and had a history class, then a period where my homeroom teacher and I picked classes, and then art class. My german class was fun, and travelling Vienna independently on the strassenbahn was VERY fun. It helped dramatically, I spoke fluently to my host mother later.

This is all for now, but my classes are the following:
Math, English, History, Psychology, English, History, Sport, Physics, German, Chemistry, Geography, Religion, Art
AND I must take one elective
AND I have two extra german classes with 10 year old. SWEET!

love, julia