Fast Silvester

So, Christmas turned out much better after I posted my last blog entry. Around 3, Kara (friend on my program who lives on the floor above) came by and invited Matt and me out with some other AYFers to go for a walk around the Seepark (the big lake park behind StuSie). It was the first sunny, beautiful day in a really long time, so the park was just lovely. Plus, it turns out there's a little Japanese garden with a waterfall back there, and we went up in the watch tower and got a decent view of the Seepark and the surroundings.

After that excursion, Matt and I headed to Vauban to have dinner with Becca and her family. She and her sister made some delicious chicken and veggies and such things. Becca got me two jars of Jif peanut butter and a big pack of mechanical pencils for Christmas, which may not sound good to you but is an absolutely wonderful gift for a poor international student like me. After dinner we uhh, went to the Irish pub in town and proceeded to rack up a 100+ Euro tab between 5 people. Then we came back and I called my family. New Christmas tradition, perhaps?

This past weekend Matt, Kara, her friend Noah and I made an impromptu visit to Köln (Cologne). We took a Schönes Wochenende ticket, which allows up to 5 people to travel on regional trains anywhere in Germany on either Saturday or Sunday for only 37 Euro... unfortunately, it took us 7.5 hours to get there. Saturday we checked in at our hostel, the hallway of which smelled like something indescribable (not in a good way) and then met up with my German friend Alex, who studies in Freiburg but is from Köln, and he showed us around a bit. On our way to the bridge over the Rhein we ran into an outdoor ice rink, so we went ice skating (turns out, Matt Hallock is an ice skating pro) and made fools of ourselves and banged up our ankles. For dinner we ate at a brewery that serves Kolsch, a type of beer brewed exclusively in Köln and talked politics and such while the crazy German waiter continuously brought us fresh beers (they are served in .2 liter glasses so they just keep bringing you new ones unless you ask them to stop). We finished off the night by walking way too far to a trendy little bar, where we all almost fell asleep because we had been up for 18+ hours at that point.


The next morning (if you can still call it morning) we were roused from sleep by one of the hostel workers entering our room to change the sheets. Turns out it was 11:40 and we were supposed to check out by noon... so we got dressed quickly and got out of there in time. We then headed to the Kölner Dom, which Alex had informed us the day before is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world... if you've ever seen it, you would believe it. Enormous, majestic and overwhelming. Since mass was still going on at the time we couldn't explore the inside much, but we did climb the 500 something stairs up the tower to get a pretty fantastic (and freezing) view of Köln (and quite the workout).

By the time we got down it was almost 1 and we had a train at 1:30ish, so we ate quickly, pretty much ran to the train station and took our 7 regional trains back to Freiburg. It's such a wonderful feeling to come back home after being on an exhausting trip somewhere.

Matt's train to Frankfurt leaves in about 2 hours. I'm really, really glad he came out here for the holidays and hope he had an enjoyable visit. And now I have a mattress for any future visitors... the offer is still open for anyone to come sleep on my floor...!

Silvester (New Years Eve) is on Wednesday. I'm having the few AYFers who are still in town over for a small party, during which we will climb up the Schlossberg and see the fireworks. I'm hoping it won't be too cold/rainy to do so, but the forecast says 40s and clear, so I'm pretty positive. It's kind of unbelievable to me that it's almost 2009 and that I've already been here for four months. Where does the time go?

Christmas and the last few months of my life

I realize that I haven't written in here in close to three months. I realize that the large majority of the time I've spent here so far has been undocumented in this blog, the blog I made specifically to document my year in Deutschland. But I'm horrible at these types of things, and by "these types of things" I don't just mean keeping up a blog, but also keeping in touch with people in general... as anyone who actually cares enough to follow this has already realized.

Part of the reason why I haven't written here for so long is because I began keeping a personal journal to write things that I couldn't (or rather, didn't want to) post online. But some of the things I talked about in there - such as my trip to Prague in October - certainly could've, and maybe should've, ended up here, I just didn't feel like posting them. That's another part of the reason - the time I do get to myself, I usually don't feel like posting in here. And, in all honesty, since the semester started, I have been much busier. It doesn't matter why I haven't written though, because I'm writing now, and hopefully will be writing in the future. No promises.

I could recap how my last few months have been, but it's kind of useless at this point. I've had classes, which have been hard (there's that whole thing about them being completely in German). I had a few minorly large bouts of homesickness in November, just as the program directors told us we would. I've gone out. I've gotten hopelessly lost in the Black Forest. I've continued to make friends, including a German or two. I've seen some really beautiful places - Prague, Munich, Zurich, Strasbourg. I've been really enjoying myself for the most part. But my life has fallen into a routine, and things have become normal, so that I no longer notice all of the time how beautiful Freiburg is, or how lucky I am to be here. Life is life.

And today is Christmas, or Weihnachten as the Germans call it, and it's almost 2:30 pm (note: I woke up at 1; I've been getting a lot of sleep lately), and I'm here, alone aside from Matt Hallock, my visitor of the last few weeks, in a 6 x 10 box, the sun shining in from my window. Only one of my nine floormates has been around for the last few days, and even she is gone at the moment. It's my first Christmas away from home, and while Christmas itself has never really meant much to me, the time with my family has, and I've never felt more disconnected from everyone I know than I do now.

Most of the time I forget that it's strange that I'm here, and everything just seems completely normal, and I don't think about the fact that I've left a life back home. But sometimes it comes back to me and I think, I haven't seen my mom or dad or brothers or friends for four months, I haven't been in East Lansing or Royal Oak or anywhere I'm used to for four months, I haven't driven a car or watched a TV (with the exception of the election) or gone shopping on a Sunday or played beer pong or been in someone's house or gotten a free refill at a restaurant or done anything with any of the people I love at home or any of those seemingly normal things for four months, and I'm not going to do any of those things for seven more months. And it's weird and sad and hard to think about and be okay with, but that's what I signed myself up for when I decided to come here, and I will and do live with it because I have to.

I don't want to make it sound like I'm not enjoying myself here, or that I regret the decision to come here, because that's completely untrue. But it's Christmas, and instead of being cuddled up in my living room with my mom and family, I'm sitting in my little room more than 4000 miles away from everyone.

Later Matt and I are going to head to Vauban (the other side of town, where Becca lives) to have dinner with her and her family, so my Christmas won't be completely void of activity. AND it turns out that the Irish pub is open at 6, so I may just end up sloshed and merry later tonight. I hope to get back in time to call my family around 11 (it'll be 5 pm there). See, it's not so bad.

Merry Christmas, everyone. I miss you and love you a lot.

It's been a while...

Although I thought having internet in my room would encourage me to blog more, it apparently does not. I was extremely busy all last week. We had two Zwischentests (midterms), one on Thursday and the other on Friday, because our Sprachkurs is already half over. I still feel like everything here is kind of new and that our class just started, but I only have this week and Monday and Tuesday of next week left of class. Thursday of next week is our final, and then we have two weeks off before Wintersemester begins.

I feel like I've learned a lot in the Konversation part of the Sprachkurs, but not necessarily as much in Grammatik. I definitely learned about 100 vocabulary words over the last two weeks, but using them in daily conversation is another story. We are learning really practical things though - vocabulary about our living situations, about WGs, how to ask someone out, how to turn them down, etc. I think I need to start talking more in German with the people I know, and to talk to more Germans in general. It's difficult though, and my lack of German speaking has not necessarily been for lack of trying. Hopefully I'll get a tandem partner soon.

I have been getting involved in a lot of different things around here though. Senta (my German 301 professor from State) set me, Andrew, Becca and Hannah up with an internship at the Kindergarten that her mother runs right outside of the downtown area. We went there Friday morning to get a tour and see what they do, and it is absolutely amazing. From 9-10 the kids have Freizeit (free time) where they can basically do whatever they choose. There are rooms for exercise, rooms for building things, rooms for playing house, basically anything you can imagine that a kid might want to do. There were a lot of adults there, both older adults and students who were playing or reading with the kids, but there were also rooms where the kids were completely unsupervised and it was no problem. The kids seem a lot more independent than American children, plus the adults place a lot more trust in them early on. Senta's mom said that the kids can work on whatever they choose during the Freizeit as long as they complete what they started and clean everything up when they're done. I was really impressed by everything. Becca and I are going in again tomorrow morning to play with the kids and get a feel for what it's like.

I'm also going to be working as an English teacher for a few German high school students in Gutach, a city about 25 minutes outside of Freiburg by train. I went out there after class on Friday with Andrew and two other AYF students and we met a bunch of the kids who we're going to be working with. Basically, they all have to take a big test in November on English, and the first thing they have to do for it is give a presentation on a topic of their choice. We're supposed to help them get prepared for that, and then in late October when the Wintersemester begins and we actually have regular schedules, we'll be going out there individually once or twice a week for a few hours and working with more of the kids on their English. All of the Schüler (the Germans call younger students Schüler; University students are Studenten) were very nice, and had a lot of the same problems with English that we have with German. We met 3 boys and 1 girl; the girl was extremely shy and barely said anything, but I'm hoping she was just very nervous about having to speak English. Frau Vennemann (the teacher we're working with) said that she requested to work with only me, probably because the guys (the other three AYFers were all guys) kind of intimidated her. She's doing her presentation on playing the flute, which is cool since I used to play, so I hope I'm able to help her do well. I'm really excited about both of these activities; they seem like things that will help me learn a lot, both about teaching and about German, and I'm glad to be able to help where I can.

This weekend was also kind of busy, which was a bit unfortunate for me because I probably got only 4-5 hours of sleep a night during the week. Friday night after I got back from Gutach I went out to Vauban to go to a party with everyone who lived there; another American student on the IES program was having people over. It was a pretty low-key night, but I didn't get to bed until 3ish, and then had to wake up at 6 to get back to StuSie to shower and get ready to go to Alsace Saturday morning. Alsace was really lovely; we went to a castle called Hoh-Koenigsburg which was absolutely beautiful, then stopped in a cute little French city called Colmar where we wandered around and went to the Unterlinden Art Museum, home to the Isenheim Alterpiece, which is a spectacular multi-section work of art. We got back to Freiburg around 6. I took a short nap and then Joanna made us all delicious macaroni and cheese for dinner. Since it was Saturday night and we had nothing going on on Sunday, we decided it was a perfect night to go out, so we played a few games with a bunch of the UMass students in my kitchen and then went to Elpi and danced for a few hours. Around 2 I was overtaken by extreme exhaustion and walked home as fast as humanly possible, then promptly collasped onto my bed. I didn't wake up until 2 pm Sunday afternoon, if that's an indication as to how tired I was.

Sunday afternoon was quite lovely; I went with Andrew, Joanna, Becca and Melissa into town to explore a bit. Andrew left us shortly to go homework, so us four girls made our way into the Schwarzwald for a little hike. We hiked up a few paths (and a few non-paths) to the top of this particular section, where there was an observation tower that overlooked the entire city. We climbed to the top (170ish stairs up a winding staircase) and took in the view for a little while. The very top platform of the tower was very small and kind of scary, because it shook quite a bit in the wind, but it offered a really amazing view. The feeling of being higher than the treetops and being able to see so much of the city was really amazing. I took a video of the city which I'll post on facebook soon; hopefully I'll also get a flicker account to post pictures for everyone who doesn't have facebook soon. Unfortunately, my camera was pretty much dead all day Saturday and Sunday, so I was only able to get a few pictures in the Schwarzwald and none in Alsace, but a lot of other people took good ones, so I may steal them so everyone at home can see what I've been up to.

This week is looking pretty good right now: tonight I'm meeting another one of the high school students and then going shopping for WG stuff with my roommates, tomorrow morning I go back to the Kindergarten, Wednesday we're meeting for breakfast with Frau Vennemann again, Wednesday or Thursday evening I'll be working with Nadine (the high school student). This coming Sunday we're going to Donaueschingen. At some point this week we have to give a Referat for our Konversationskurs, but no tests (woooo). I really need to get plans finalized for what I'm going to be doing during the two weeks after the Sprachkurs is finished... Becca and I were thinking maybe going to Italy to visit our friend Andrea, who's staying in Rome, but I need to ask her about that first... :)

I have internet... and no self control.

My internet finally started working today! I'm more excited about the fact that I don't have to attempt to talk to the BreisNet people again than the fact that I actually have it. However, I was able to call my mom and Ashley on Skype for only 50 cents earlier, so that was lovely.

I've realized that I'm very bad at blogging. I haven't really talked much about any differences I've noticed about the German culture, nor have I done a good job explaining any of the places I've been to. So I'll attempt to do that now.

Basically, the city of Freiburg is nothing like any American city I've ever been to. Like many of the European cities I've been to, everything in Freiburg (even the newer parts of the city) has a feeling of age to it. It's a bit weird sometimes when I'm doing something completely normal around town, like walking to class or going shopping, to realize the history that's surrounding me. While a large part of the city was destroyed during World War II, there are still so many buildings that have been around for hundreds and hundreds of years. The Münster (the big cathedral in town) was built from 1120ish to 1330ish and is still standing today - it's the only building in the Altstadt that survived the 1944 bombings. We had a historical tour of Freiburg on Wednesday and the tour guide told us that the reason it has lasted so long is because it was built ten times stronger than necessary, because architectural and mathematical techniques weren't as advanced back then. I guess all of that extra work really paid off.

Besides the buildings, everything else about Freiburg is extremely beautiful. The Schwarzwald is literally right next to the city, and I'd really love to explore it more some time soon. The mini-hike we went on last Friday was lovely, but I feel like I need to really spend some time being adventurous and wandering around in there. There are also so many other gorgeous places in this city - the Restaurant where our reception was held was at the top of a hill that overlooked the entire city... I tried to take some good pictures, but it's hard to take it in when you're not actually here. And tomorrow we were supposed to go to the Schauinsland, which I've heard is beautiful, but unforunately the trip is postponed due to the horrible weather this weekend. I'm pretty bummed, not only because it sounds like an amazing trip, but also because the weekends here have been pretty low-key, and I don't know what I'm going to do all day tomorrow. Hopefully I'll spend some time getting to know the city a little better... I want to keep myself busy as much as possible.

One thing I do need to do is start being more outgoing towards German people. I've met a whole lot of Americans here, and while I really like mostly everyone I've met and I'm having a great time, I didn't come here to speak English with midwesterners. I think the Sprachkurs has been helping a little in improving my German, but there have been multiple times when I've been in a situation where my German does not come close to being sufficient to explain what I need, and it's a frustrating experience. I've tried many times to only speak German to the other Americans, but we always end up reverting back to English after we go for long enough with out being able to say what we want to say.

Besides the language barrier, I haven't really had much trouble adjusting to the culture yet. There are a lot of differences with the way things go, but I think that just makes life more interesting rather than more difficult. Some of the little things that are different here include:

- Tipping at restaurants: Waitstaff here actually get paid real wages, so tips are usually under 50 cents. I usually just round up to the next Euro when I'm giving a tip. When you pay, the waiter/waitress usually comes around to the table with a change purse and you give them money right there. Instead of telling them how much you want back, you tell them how much you want to pay, and they give you change, or if you give exactly how much you want to pay, you say "stimmt so" to let them know the rest is a tip.

- Garbage: The Germans separate all of their trash into a bunch of different garbage cans... one for plastic, one for paper, one for everything else, etc. I haven't quite figured this one out yet (there are four trash cans in our kitchen and none of them are labelled so I just have to guess where to put my trash...).

- Food: Bakeries and ice cream shops are EVERYWHERE. There's probably a bakery on every block or two, which makes it difficult to resist stopping to buy something. I'm pretty sure all or most of the ice cream around here is gelato, or at least it tastes like it... it's bad news. There are also tons of places to get Döners (a Turkish sandwich-like food... bread stuffed with fried meat, veggies and sauce), but I think I'm the only American who's not a fan of them. Peanut butter is difficult to find and somewhat expensive, but Nutella is a great substitute when I feel like having a snack. Of course, the fact that I don't know how to cook is basically limiting my diet to sandwiches and eating out, but I did make dinner for Joanna, Andrew, Kara and myself last night and it turned out relatively well.

- Drinks: There is, of course, the fact that I can legally buy alcohol here... I've been enjoying cheap wine with dinner and Rottkäppchen and beer when I go out. I've discovered quite a few darker German beers that I really like, which may mean I'm going to be a bit of a beer snob when I get back. In terms of non-alcoholic drinks, I've pretty much been sticking to filling up my water bottle at any available tap, because drinks at restaurants tend to be very expensive, small, kind of warm and non-refillable. Everyone keeps saying that the Coke here taste different, but I don't really notice any difference. Most water you buy anywhere has carbonation in it, which I'm not a fan of, and drinks are never served with ice. I don't think Germans believe in ice at all.

There are, of course, plenty of other things that are different here (like the use of 24-hour time, and the fact that dates are written day-month-year instead of month-day-year), but I'll write about them later as I encounter them more.

To get back to what I've been up to lately... last night was the party in Vauban. It was kind of packed and kind of just like party in an American apartment, but I definitely enjoyed myself. I got to talk to some of the AYFers who I don't see as often, as well as meet a few new people. Our Grammatik instructor Uschi actually showed up and drank a few beers and smoked a few cigarettes, which was a bit of a strange surprise. I didn't get to bed until really late, so I'm pretty tired today. I think I'm just going to take it easy tonight.

I really need to get my laundry washed, considering I've worn every pair of jeans I brought 3+ times already and most of them have gotten considerably wet/dirty some time in the last few weeks. Laundry tokens are kind of expensive, especially the dryer tokens, so I think I'm only going to dry my jeans and put the rest of my clothes on the drying racks in the hallway... I hope my roommates don't mind me using them.

I'll post again probably soon, considering I no longer have to buy drinks to use the internet. :)

Pictures!

Pictures are up on facebook from the first week and a half.

I got my modem today, but the password I'm supposed to use isn't working, so I think I'm just not in BreisNet's system yet. It's not a big deal though, I'm able to get wireless in Andrew and Joanna's Haus (right across the way from mine), so if it continues to not work I'll just come here.

Last night was the Freiburg-Madison-Gesellschaft Reception, which was basically amazing. We went on a historical tour in the morning which was kind of interesting, then had class, then went up into this lovely restaurant/Biergarten where they welcomed us and gave us lots of free wine and appetizers. After that I came back to StuSie with Becca and Jeff, ate and hung out for a few hours before StuSie Bar started to pick up. Shot Nite was a lot of fun... Brian Grady taught us beer hockey and then I just hung out and danced and such for the rest of the night. I did spend all of my 10 Euro that night though. :(

Class has been kind of horrible... it just seems to last forever and they give us a lot of homework. It's 2 am here and I've been working on an essay that was assigned today and is due tomorrow for a while. I haven't been doing much actual work though, otherwise I could've gotten it done much faster...

I'm so glad tomorrow is Friday. Becca and Kyle are having everyone over to their WG in Vauban for a party, which should be interesting considering I'm pretty sure there isn't enough room to fit more than 20 or so people in there. But I'm excited. Saturday I have keine Plaene, hopefully I'll do something cool... Sunday we're going to Schauinsland. I'm not really sure what it is, but it involves cable cars and apparently you can see the Swiss Alps from the top on a clear day. I'll try to take lots of lovely pictures.

My battery is going to die in 4 minutes and I really need to get to bed so, bis spaeter. Oh, and if there are people who are actually reading this, I love comments. :)

Oh yeah, I'm here to study...

So, class has started. We have a Sprachkurs from 2-5:15 everyday... first part focuses on Grammatik, second on Konversation (I'm not going to translate any of those because I think it's pretty easy to figure it out). Our teacher for the first class, Uschi (rhymes with Sushi) speaks to us like we're five years old and probably thinks we have the mental capacity of someone that age. The second part of class is better. I'm learning way cool shit like Dativ and Akkusativ Verbs and info about Freiburg. We don't have a whole lot of homework but some of it is stupid and frustrating. My class is pretty cool - Joanna, Becca and a bunch of other good people are in it with me. Andrew got in the advanced class, which seems pretty hard... I'm glad I'm too stupid to be in it.

Besides class, I've kind of just been hanging out. Right now I'm in the RioBar with Joanna, Andrew and Bob (yes, I've met someone named Bob, and no, he's not a middle-aged man). Tomorrow we have a lot of stuff going on - we're getting a historical tour of the city at 10, then we have class 2-5:15, then a fancy semi-formal reception from 6-8. And then of course, Mittwoch is Shot Night at StuSie bar. I'm really excited because last Wednesday was a lot of fun... basically just super cheap drinks and dancing and cool people. And I actually know people now, so it should be better... I'm trying to get all of the AYFers to come out.

No word on the internet situation yet. BreisNet (the company we're getting internet from) is only open on Wednesdays from 3-4 and Thursdays from 9-10 a.m.... I just love the Germans and their infrequent hours... hopefully I'll get it this week, although the only thing I really want it for is so I can Skype people.

I'm uploading some pictures of the first week to facebook right now... they're kind of horrible. The pictures of Basel are really pretty, and I have a couple good ones of Freiburg. I went for a run this morning around the Seepark that's really close to StuSie (where I live) and it was really pretty. There's a lake and some other cool stuff around, I think I will run there frequently. Basically, the whole place is beautiful.

Me and a bunch of the other students are hoping to find a way to go to Oktoberfest... it runs until October 5, and our finals for our Sprachkurs are on the 2nd, so I think we should just take off for Munich after that and spend a night or two in a park. As long as we find a couple of boys to come mit, I don't think it'll be a problem. I can't miss Oktoberfest when I'm in Germany for a year, can I?

Umm... I think everyone needs to come visit me. Right now. Seriously, this place is too good for none of you to experience.

First week

So I'm here in Germany!!!

I was hoping to be able to update before this because I would've had more to say but we aren't getting internet in our rooms for at least a few weeks and I would've felt kind of weird updating my blog in the university library. Luckily the bar in our complex has wifi if you buy a drink.

Basically, a week has passed and I absolutely love it here. All last week was orientation week - we met all of the other AYF students, filled out a lot of paperwork, opened bank accounts, got cell phones, took our placement test. At night I've been going out a lot... there's a square in town where people just go and hang out and drink on warm summer nights so we went there on Tuesday and I made friends with German guy and spoke to him for a couple hours in German, which helped out. Wednesday nights are shot nights in the StuSie bar (where we're at now, it's only a few minutes walk from my room), so we came and danced it up. Thursday we went on a bar crawl with a bunch of people from our program. I really like the bar scene here... a lot of dancing and chatting. Every night I've been pretty good about just drinking enough to feel good, so I don't embarrass myself over here.

We've done a lot of really, really cool stuff too. Friday we hiked up a trail through the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) to this Biergarten/Restaurant at the top. The hike was absolutely beautiful and the Biergarten was really nice and cute. Today we went to Basel, Switzerland for a day trip (the Swiss border is less than an hour away by train). There was a really cool street sale going on with a bunch of stands selling things from around the world and people playing music and such. We also went to the art museum there, which was free and really nice - there was a lot of Chagall and Picasso, which was pretty cool.

So overall, I'm having a great time. The not having internet thing kind of sucks but really isn't too horrible (obviously I can get online when I need to), but that's really the only thing I can complain about. I've made a lot of friends - almost everyone on our program is really, really cool, and I've met a few Germans who I'll hopefully keep talking to, because I really need to work on my German more. We start our language class tomorrow, so that should be a good way to keep me busy and working on my German. Our class during September is from 2-5:15 Monday-Friday, which isn't so bad, so we can still go out at night if we want to.

I don't know when my next post will be, but hopefully soon. I'll eventually post some pictures on facebook so everyone can see all of the fun I'm having.

Tschuess!

Last night in the US

I suppose I should explain exactly what I'm doing and why I'm writing this before I start talking about my feelings...

I'm leaving tomorrow to spend a year in Germany through a program called Academic Year in Freiburg (AYF). Along with a bunch of other students from MSU, Michigan, University of Iowa and University of Wisconsin-Madison, I'll be studying in Freiburg, Germany from September 1, 2008-July 31, 2009. For the month of September I'll be taking an intensive language course. For the rest of the year I'll be taking courses, both through AYF and at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (University of Freiburg). The German semesters run from late October-mid-February and then mid-April-July. I'll be back some time in early August 2009.

I'm living in a Studentenwohnheim (student dorm) called Studentensiedlung am Seepark (StuSie). I'll have my own room (with a sink!), but will share bathrooms, a common room and a kitchen with 9 other German and international students, one of whom is also an AYF student. I'm in StuSie Haus 44... there are 19 other StuSie buildings surrounding me. The StuSies are supposedly about 2 miles northwest of the university.

At the university I have to take 30ish credits. I don't know what I'm taking yet, but I have to take a bunch of German courses to finish up my major, and then can fill up the rest of my schedule with things I want to take. I think I'm just going to take a bunch of random interesting-looking stuff. The only course that transfer over as grades (instead of just credit or no credit) are my German classes, so I'm not so worried about doing horrible in random classes just because they're all going to be taught in German.

While I'm there, my main goal is to learn as much German as possible. I want to come back completely fluent. I also want to have the very best time of my life, but I have a feeling that won't be difficult. I plan on traveling as much as I possibly can without running out of money. Starting in October I'll be receiving 650 Euro per month from the German Academic Exchange Service (wooooo) and I'm also strongly considering working in one of the Irish pubs in Freiburg. I've heard that it's really fun and that they hire a lot of Americans, and I figure I can make a lot of money in tips... so hopefully between those two things I'll be super rich and can go all over the place. I'm not too worried, I know I'm going to have an amazing time anyway. :)

And now, on to my current feelings...

***************

There are only 14 hours before I leave, and I don't yet feel remotely sad.

For this entire summer I've had this constant weird feeling knowing that I only had a few months left in the US. It's a weird thing to know that you're soon going to be leaving (mostly) everyone and everything you know and love for a year. I was worried for a while about making friends over the summer and just having to leave them too. But in the last few weeks I've realized (as in, people have reminded me) that a year really isn't that long, and that mostly everyone is still going to be here when I get back. I think that really helps me stay as positive as I am about leaving.

Of course, there are a few people who will be gone when I come back, who I pretty much will never see again. And while it's sad that I had to say goodbye to them early, I'd have had to say goodbye to them eventually anyway, and I'm just glad to have gotten to know them in the first place.

I thought I was going to cry saying goodbye to a lot of people, but I've pretty much said goodbye to everyone at this point, and I haven't yet. I'm just waiting for it to hit me.

I'm trying to stay up as late as I can tonight so I can be super sleepy for the flight tomorrow. I'm hoping that if I only get a few hours of sleep and drink a couple glasses of wine on the plane I might be able to fall asleep for part of the ride. I still have to finish packing my carry on bag and straighten up my room and such things. Both of my suitcases weigh over 40 pounds (the limit is 50) and my backpack is going to be heavy too, so I'm really not looking forward to having to carry those through the airport, onto and off of the train, and to my room in Freiburg. Eek! Good thing I've been working out this summer. ;)

I really have nothing else to write, besides just to say that I'm so so so excited to get there.

Bis später... my next post will be from Deutschland!