Why Germany?

Not everyone knows the background I suppose. I (Shannon) have been studying German for many years as a hobby. This started in High School (3 years), then as an undergrad at Auburn (major was Computer Science, minor was German). The German minor really came about because I found out about an Auburn exchange program while I was taking some German classes. I also won a scholarship (Fred Birdsong Study Abroad Scholarship for Auburn Engineering Students), which made it really easy to go. So, I lived in Germany for 9 months while I was an undergrad – July 1990 until March 1991. I studied German for several months in Mannheim and then worked a student job (Computer Programmer) at the University of Karlsruhe. After I came back, I spoke very little German for about 10 years.

Berlin Wall 1990

Reunification Party

When I came back to Auburn to work, I started sitting in on German classes (one per semester) for fun. Even though I had lived in Germany before, I really think that my language skills got a lot better when I started studying again. I felt like I had lost a lot of what I had learned before. I ended up taking a number of classes at Auburn and finished a bachelors degree in German in 2008.



During the time that I was working on my degree, I started to meet a number of Germans in Auburn. There were people at the University and there are several German companies in Auburn, Alabama now. We got to know them. I talked to them about Auburn and about the US. They told us about Germany. Of course every time they left, they insisted that we should come to visit them if we were ever in Germany. One family also had two boys who are almost the same age as our boys. We had played with them many times and been hiking and camping with them. When they left Auburn, we made tentative plans with them to visit Germany in the Spring of 2009.