Hey, two posts during the same month, I think I'm getting better at this blogging thing! Any who, let me give you a run down on what's happened so lately:
Guess what! I FINALLY GOT A HOST FAMILY AKA MY HOST FAM-BAM, THANK YOU MA'AM! (Granted they're only a Welcome FAmily, so I'll only be with the, for a short period of time, BUT STILL I'M ECSTATIC) I've been waiting THE longest for notice that I was matched with a family, especially since all the the other AFSers from Jersey were already matched. But, I will be living in Marburg with a host mom and dad and three sisters (aged, 18, 15 and 9) (I'm not going to reveal their names because I don't know if they're comfortable with that)! Alright, so I've never had a younger sister, so I don't really know how to properly deal with younger siblings. Like whenever I babysit or when I'm around little children for long periods of time, my facial expressions is mostly like this:
However, whenever I'm around younger kids, they're usually like under 6 years old, so I'm sure I'll be able to get along fairly and not super awkwardly with my little host sister. More on my family, my oldest host sister has actually traveled abroad with AFS to the Dominican Republic in the past so I feel like she'll understand how I'm feeling about being in a new environment. Also, they all speak, or are learning, English and are near fluent, if not fluent (Best Family Ever or what?!). Also, they mainly eat vegetarian cuisine (which is awesome because I've always wanted to fully commit to a vegetarian diet, but my mom was always against it…). They additionally like to go on bike rides and I believe that the two eldest sisters are in a sports club, because I was informed that they enjoyed playing handball.
Moving on to the location of my family….Marburg. Alright, so here's the thing about Marburg, it's in the heart of Germany, like right in the center of Germany. Do you guys understand what his means? This means that every "city-like" place is at least an hour away, for instance, Frankfurt is an hour away from Marburg. This is a blessing in disguise though, because then the items in the stores in Marburg are not as high priced as they would be in the city! I'm extremely blessed and excited that I get to experience Marburg. From looking at the pictures and from what my host dad has told me, it's a very medical type of town. It's has a rich history and there's lots of churches and it's a place where you'd actually want to talk a walk outside because it seems as though you'll see something new each day. Here's some pictures that my host dad sent me of the town:
It looks so pretty! I feel as though perhaps there's lots of festivals in the town center! Also, I start school at the Gymnasium on September 8th, so I'll basically get right into living like a regular German student as soon as I get there. I was also thinking about joining a sports club as an extra-curricular activity! Wish me luck y'all!
Now…we move on to the topic of (dun-dun-dun) my friends (the lights dim low as the audience lets out a huge gasp of relief). Am I being too over the top with my narration? Probably, but let's not mention it.
Yes, but throughout these last few days I've been doing the routine "see your closest friends and do the awkward but apply goodbye" ordeal. So, I hung out with Vanessa on Thursday and when I said goodbye to Mama Leite, I did it all casually as if I'd be seeing her every weekend during the school. Can I get a time warper so that I can go back in time and re-do my goodbye to her because I will actually miss her a lot (I mean she introduced me to Portuguese novelas, why wouldn't I miss her?!) But Vanessa's finally happy again and it's awesome cause who doesn't like their friends being happy?! Like what? Uhh, no one. But then I hung out with Mae and Sam on Friday and it's was the best final hangout ever! We went on an "excursion" throughout Union and basically took pictures at every place that meant something to me and yea, they're awesome. Oh! And Jenel, my unofficial little sister did the cutest thing and hid a stuffed panda bear in my bag as my goodbye present and it was the best present ever because I actually really love stuffed animals. I was actually pretty sad when I got home because I mean not seeing my best friend for nearly a year is like one of the worst negatives about this. (I actually ended up hanging out with Mae yesterday because friendship clothing reasons and we had a play date with Lucero and "invisible Amanda")
(Sam, left, called Kris, who lives down the street from the high school, just so that he could come and take a proper picture of us in front of the school, sorry Kris.)
So, packing. I loathe packing with a passion. First, I decided that it would be pleasurable if I put all of my clothes into the laundry, I have a lot of clothes so it literally took two days to finish it all. So then the hardest part was deciding what was worth taking and what was not (I'm still torn up about the items that aren't included in any of my luggage) So, I depart for D.C in about two days and I haven't finalized my luggage containments. All my luggage is packed, but I keep adding items and taking out items, it's like an endless cycle. It's ridiculous.
However, this is all worth it because how many high school students can say that they spent nearly a year in Germany? NOT MUCH THAT'S WHO!
Guess what time it is? It's time for the oh-so-important end of the post song! This time around, the song chosen is Burn the Pages by Sia. So, the song overall is not 100% relevant to my emotions but it can be depending on which interpretation you use! But in the song she mentions how the person she's speaking about worries too much and I was worrying too much in the beginning but once I stopped worrying, everything fell into place. (Alright, maybe that was all BS and I just really wanted to include this song so I made an excuse to include it in this post.)
