by Nicole Couturiaux ’12

Two weeks ago our program celebrated our arrival in Bremen with a welcome dinner in the “Ratskeller,” the UNESCO world heritage wine cellar and restaurant below the city hall building. It’s tradition for the new group to gather here in October, after our individual language courses across the country, to enjoy each other’s company and start the year off with a traditional north-German meal. The 6 of us were presented with our long-awaited visas, making us official citizens of Bremen.

Poets Michael Augustin and Sujata Bhatt also joined us for dinner. The couple has a strong connection to our program – both are former Dickinson Writers-in-Residence and they remain active contributors to Dickinson’s literary programs. As a first-year student, I listened in on their readings at our annual international poetry festival Semana Poética and even journaled about Michael’s poems as an assignment for my German class at the time. Two years later I was surprised and thrilled to reminisce about Dickinson traditions and compare favorite Carlisle restaurants with them. The night concluded with a photo of our well-fed, very talkative, and quite jubilant group in front of the famous Bremer Stadtmusikanten.