First Weekend in Germany!

I know what you're thinking, why just make a post about the first weekend in Germany? IT WAS JUST THAT IMPORTANT, OKAY.

Well, the time leading up to Germany, I was very non-chalant about the whole thing, I feel as though I was the least nervous or hyped up the whole trip. But once I got on the plane, it all got very real! I began vigorously texting all my friends and family that the plane was about to take off and that I would to contact them with that number anymore. I was trying to do all of this before I lost signal and my thumbs have never moved quicker! However, I was seated next to the best flight-mates ever (Shout out to Sam and Audrey!) We were that cool that we synchronized our flight tvs so that we would be watching the same episode of Big Bang Theory at the same time and we shared some Godiva chocolate (They ran out of Toblerone, which still sounds very ludicrous to me!)

So, we basically time traveled! We left D.C at around 5 or 6 pm and we got to Germany at about 7 in the morning and it was only an 7 or 8 hour plane ride! So I basically slept for 15 minutes on the plane so I was a bit tired when we got to Germany but I wasn't going to let my new family know that! But when we finally got into our meeting area in the airport, some people saw their family and I was confused and sad cause my family said they were gonna be there but I didn't see them, so yet again I felt like an orphan….UNTIL we went up the escalator and I saw my family!!

Luckily, they didn't take me exploring as soon as we got there! They gave me about 3 hours to rest cause we did not get home until about 10am or so (They were actually waiting at the airport for 2 hours or more before we came out….) However, we basically went on a tour of Marburg (the city area). We took the bus and Christoph (mein Gastvater) gave me my bus card so that I don't have to pay for any bus tickets for the rest of the year. We first went to the Martin-Luther Schule (the school that I'll be attending with meine Gastschwester, Clara. Then they showed me where I would be taking my language lessons (I begin on Monday, finally!!), it's actually down the street from mein Schule. Then we went to St. Elizabeth's Church. IT'S SO BIG! We actually accidentally sort of crashed a wedding that was taking place there...

             

Afterwards, we meet up again with meine andere Gastschwester, Flora, who went off before to buy new shoes form H&M (I will talk about the wonderful H&M store here in a later post!). We then went to get some Eis because they love ice cream (I ate some before I had the bright idea to take a picture…oops...). Flora then left to go hang out with her boyfriend and we walked up this really big hill to go see the castle (There was actually a really nice view from the top of the castle area. 

                     

Clara, left afterwards because she had to go to work (she works at a café! #DreamJob) So then we wrapped up the day by eating something….I can't remember what it was but I know it was Italian…..sorry guys...

Alright, so Sunday! On Sunday we took a tour of the neighborhood. There's a lot of farms in different areas of towns but we only went into one farm. Being from a town that's nowhere near farms, I was actually really excited. So we first went into the pigs area and I was excited at first because I thought the pigs would like me because I don't eat bacon and pork stuff but nope. I have never been more scared in my life. PIGS ARE TERRIFYING! I took a step in and I just heard pig screams and I almost cried and I'm pretty sure I squealed with every step I took into their stable (barn? pig-stye? room?)

Scary scary Pigs

Then we saw the cows afterwards and we went around more. There was another ice cream store and we stopped for ice cream there also (I didn't get any because you know, ice cream two days in a row speeds up the typical exchange student weight gain process….) Yea, so we ended up back home and ate some Italian meals….yet again…I can't remember what it was for the life of me…I'm so sorry! 

However, I ended my day picking out classes for my timetable with Christoph and then we played a board game. Sorry, that probably sounds really boring but….I can't remember much from that weekend….sorry y'all! 

End of Post song: Prayer in C

The song is extremely popular in Germany right now, or at least it's popular in the places that I go to. For instance I went to H&M and this song was played twice in the 30 minute period that I was there, it's crazy. But it's a pretty good song! 

"Is there a high chance that we'll bump into President Obama on the way to the Bathroom"?

So the road to Germany continued with the Gateway Orientation in D.C. 

So being from New Jersey, there really was no point in me taking a plane to D.C when it was literally a 4 hour drive from NJ to DC. However, this trip was not all rainbows and ice cream, ESPECIALLY SINCE I WAS IN A CAR WITH LEATHER SEATS DURING 90 DEGREE WEATHER. It was so unbearable especially since the air conditioning stopped working half way through the trip, GET IT TOGETHER BMW. 

Any who, when we finally got to D.C., they told us that we could go into the lobby area and say our goodbyes, so being the unemotional type, it was like "business" type of goodbye (SORRY MOM!) (I really suck at goodbyes, I'm too awkward about it). But the girl next to me who was saying good bye to her family was crying and everything and I looked at my mom and my eyes basically said "Should I cry or are we good?" and her eyes basically said "We're fine". Then we took selfies and hugged and all of that good stuff and I went up to my room. When I went to join everyone else in the salon, they were all like in this huge circle and like they looked like they were all close already and it was actually pretty intimidating. But yeah, we did the whole name circle thing and we tried to play a game about secrets but that only lasted for like 3 people and then like everyone decided to break up in the groups of what area we would be going to. I met some pretty awesome people in that group!

So basically the whole time in D.C was full of information meetings about prepping us for being Ambassadors in Germany and our congressional meetings. We began our D.C day by visiting the Lincoln Monument, but we couldn't stay for that long because there was lots of traffic and we had to be at the Department of State office soon.

CBYX 2014-2014 Ambassadors!

So my congressman wasn't in his office that week; it was just our luck that when he was gonna be in Jersey, we were gonna be in D.C. We meet with one of his representatives, Michael Taggart though, who is also from Jersey! He was actually one of the coolest and down to earth type of person ever, and he was a bit funny. It felt more like a conversation instead of a meeting. After the meeting, we had a bit of time until we had to meet back up at the train station, so we walked around a bit (by a bit, I mean we looked at the buildings on the way back to the train station). 

                 

Now on to the AFS/CBYX specific informational meetings. Let me tell you about the coolest group leader ever, Jessica (GO TEAM JESSICA!) She genuinely gave the best advice ever and she was always ahead of the game (I still think it was BS that we got 3rd place in that game, just saying).

Team Jessica (Jessica's in the pink shirt)

Anyway, nothing super exciting happened during the meetings (except for that Supergeil song and music video) so I think I'm gonna end here with the DC post) (OH! I also got some people to try Chipotle for the first time) 

Chipotle Buds

So now it's time for that end of the post song thing again…..

This time, the honor goes to *drum roll*….. SUPERGEIL. The song was literally that entertaining that I had to give it this honor. ENJOY! 

Future Overload of Posts

Sorry guys but I've been meaning to update this blog since I got to D.C about three weeks ago but you know, procrastination and being "busy" is killer. So you're about to get bombarded with new posts in a couple of minutes!