Finally!

Have you ever noticed how many exclamation points I use on this blog? It's a little embarrassing, actually. But anyway. I am finally updating my blog, after thirteen days away from home and six in Germany.

After a weekend in Baltimore with Erin and Sylvie, my dad drove my to the Dulles Crown Plaza hotel in Virginia, where all 50 of the Congress-Bundestag kids met up. The first day was spent doing nothing but waiting around and making awkward conversation. Although I didn't make any really good friends, most of them were really nice and welcoming. My roommate, Alyssa, was a really nice girl. Another person, Katie, was also very cool -- when I first met her, she was wearing a knee-length vintage skirt with mushrooms on it, and told me that she collects internal organs preserved in formaldyhyde. Therefore, she was definitely very different from the other C-B kids, the majority of whom had a more preppy style. She lives near Hamburg, however, seven or so hours away.

The next day, we went to D.C. to meet with our Congressional representatives and go to the German embassy, State department, and Goethe Institut. The woman I met with from Tom Allen's office, Joleen, was really great. She knew a lot about international exchange and AFS already, and she was refreshingly casual compared to everyone else we met with that day. I did not enjoy the State Department, but the German embassy was interesting -- we learned a little about the German political system, and I felt like the woman we talked to was a lot more straightforward about how the U.S. is percieved around the world. At the Goethe Institut, we watched a humorous video about Berlin. We had dinner at a German restaurant in the city, and I had a delicious portabello mushroom schnitzel with German salad (picked potatoes, beets, yellow beans, and sauerkrawt topped with lettuce.)

The next day was all activities and exercises related to fitting in in our host communities, etc. By this time, I was really ready to actually be in Germany, as was everyone else. The next morning we arrived at Dulles airport at 12:30 (our flight took off at 5:30 pm.) The plane ride did not feel too long. I watched an old movie dubbed in German and slept for maybe two or three hours. The next day was kind of awful. We had to stay in Frankfurt airport in the hallway, not being allowed to go anywhere except the bathroom, from 7:00 to 2:30, when our trains left. I drank my first Apfelschorle and talked to Katie and another girl named Becky, who is staying about an hour away from me. Other AFS students from Thailand, Italy, China, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Honduras, Brazil, Paraguay, and more arrived, but I was so exhausted I was feeling really anti-social. I read about half of Kafka on the Shore.

We were sent away with local AFS volunteers to our individual trains. Ours was really funny, he was about 25 and kept telling us how much we would end up drinking and smoking and swearing over the course of the year. He was also not willing to keep track of us at all, so I kept feeling like I was about to be lost in the train station, lagging behind everyone else. I felt really bad by this time. I felt sick, hadn't eaten in ten hours, etc. I slept through pretty much the whole train ride. Suddenly I was roughly awakened by the AFS volunteer, then given lots of complicated instructions about how and when to get off the train. Finally he handed me my luggage and said, "OK, now!" I got off the train at the Karlsruhe stop and for some reason I thought I had to get on another train, but then Regina and Hans-Peter arrived to pick me up. I was so happy to see them and finally get to actually go home and sleep.

We drove 30 minutes to our tiny town, Gräufenhausen. It is on the edge of the Black Forest and has maybe 200 people. We live at the top of a huge hill and we can see the forest and other small villages from our deck. I have a lovely room to live in, and they have three pianos, a drum set, and a vibraphone. It's really nice. My host parents are wonderful.

I have been homesick this past week, but now that I am in language school in Karlsruhe, I feel much better. Also, my host parents have been really understanding. It's a lot more different here culturally than I ever imagined. Also, I never realized how much I really love Portland -- I expected to miss my parents, but not to miss everything about where I live. It's beautiful here, but it's so different. You can walk to the gas station or the convenient store, but not much else. The church bells ring every 15 minutes, and at 5 in the morning they go crazy, in remembrance of the miners who had to work every morning a long time ago. Oh yeah, and Gräufenhausen just celebrated its 900th birthday.

I have many charmingly German stories, but I can't remember any at this very moment -- ich bin ein bisschen müde. Well, here's one: yesterday when I was driving home from the train station with Hans-Peter, we stopped at the weird little gas station in Gräufenhausen. He went into the shop and came out with a piece of delicious, freshly baked Brötchen with poppy seeds and sesame seeds on it! Isn't that funny??

I went to real school in Pforzheim Tuesday and Wednesday, before language school began. The school is absolutely huge and scary. The kids in my class are really nice to me, and the teachers are very, very different from what I'm used to. My classes sound interesting, but I can understand absolutely none of what the teachers are saying, so they're absolutely boring so far. I'm taking ethics, French, politics, German, English, music (which is my "focus," so I have it four days a week), math, chemistry, biology, gym (unless I can somehow get out of it -- I'm going to try), history, and art. I think that's all.

I'll write again soon. And post pictures, if I can get Alex to help me figure out how!