"But…I don't want to leave…"

Alright, so naturally after having going on vacation, one expects everything to keep better. However, with my luck, things started going a bit downhill.

So my beloved Terno family were just my Welcome Family, so naturally, I knew that I was not going to be able to stay with them for my whole exchange experience. However, I wasn't expecting to be moved into ANOTHER GERMAN STATE THAT IS MORE THAN TWO HOURS AWAY. I was hoping that at least the AFS Gods would be kind enough and hard working enough to find me a host family that was at least in the central Hessen area, if not in Marburg, than at least in Giessen but noooo, Ama has to be moved into a completely new area. So yeah, my new host family was revealed to be located in Remscheid, which is located in Nordrhein Westfalen.

What does one normally do when they find out that they have only about two weeks or so left in a town and with people that they've came to adore? I'm actually really not sure but I basically slowly began telling everyone that I was leaving and wishing that somehow I'd be magically relocated back to central Hessen one way or another. Additionally, for some reason or another, I somehow got closer to people during my final moments in Marburg…Why all of this bonding couldn't have occurred about a month earlier or so, I WILL NEVER KNOW

The most tragic yet amazing day during my final moments was obviously my last full day in school, and in Marburg as a whole. If you haven't realized from my previous post about school, I am in love with the kids in my 5th grade German class, so I got so emotional during my last lesson with them (which also ended up being the day that I had to do my presentation on The Outsiders…IN GERMAN…and when I say it was God Awful, I mean the fullest extent of AWFUL). So let's just say a tear nearly slipped out when they all said "Auf Wiedersehen" to me.

My babies :(

Now on to the evening! So literally my going away celebration was very spontaneous, Clara literally gathered all the people about 4 hours or so before. But we went out with almost all my favorite Marburg people and we did regular teenager stuff and it was basically one of the best experiences I've had here so far. 

Feli and Franzi in the background (:

So the next day Erdmuthe drove me to Remscheid, which took about 3 hours or so each way, so I was very appreciative of that because they could've easily told me to take the train. Okay so here's the thing, I'm really not an emotional person but for some reason I managed to get so attached to these people that I was very sad when I had to leave. I never actually cried because you know I'm not a crier. However when I hugged everyone before we began driving, I actually was so close to full on tears, especially when I embraced Clara and let's not get me started on my wreck of emotions when I hugged Erdmuthe for the last time before she left my new home in Remscheid. It took me about three hours to unpack because I was still trying to not burst out into tears like every 30 minutes. 

Partial view of Marburg by the Castle

Okay so now it's time to get super heart-warmy and Nicholas Sparksy! So I basically just wanna point how grateful I am for everything I got to experience while I was in Marburg. The people I encountered and built some sort of relationship with are truly one of a kind and I promise that despite the distance, I will actually always attempt to stay in touch one way or another! And a special nod to the Ternos for being an amazing family and actually treating me like one of theirs despite how at times I seemed to be reclusive, I promise it's not cause I didn't like you guys or that I felt uncomfortable, I'm just not used to the whole "family time" thing and I just second guess the actions I want to do or the things I would like to say a lot. So I'm sorry if I gave you guys the wrong impression! I know you guys read my blog so I hope you still find my technique of writing interesting! :)

Okay so song of the Post time! 

 Okay so leider, this time the song is going to be sung in English because the album that this song came from was the soundtrack playing in my head during this stage in my exchange. And I am also a sucker for Mayer, he makes me very very happy. 

So here's Slow Dancing in a Burning Room by John Mayer!

“YAY BACK IN AMSTER- darn, is it gonna rain the whole time?”

Guess who got to visit Amsterdam for the second time? THIS GAL!

So back in October, we went to Amsterdam for the first week of the Herbstferien (Clara decided not to come though). So this was my second time visiting Amsterdam, because I was there a couple of years ago. But I certainly did not remember it being that rainy when I visited years ago (granted I went before in the Summer and not the Fall). But still AMSTERDAMMM!

One the first day, we stayed at a temporary hostel because our rooms at our actual hostel weren't ready for us yet. So our temporary hostel was all the way across the city, like probably 20 blocks or so from the Amsterdam train station. But that wasn't an issue cause it was basically like going through a mini tour of Amsterdam to get to our hostel. But after settling in at our hostel, we immediately hit town and went to the Anne Frank Museum. You know how people always say the line for it is outrageously long? Yea, that's not an understatement. Pretty sure it took us nearly an hour and a half to get it. The wait was so long that we actually like took turns walking around the city to pass up time. (Amsterdam is THE city of canals, and when people say that, they're definitely not lying) But once you get in, despite the small size of the museum, I can totally say that it's worth it. It was just as awesome as the first time I went there (but I'm pretty they renovated it, like I don't remember that docu-area from my first time). But since, this all happened like four months ago, my memory is s bit fuzzy, but I'm pretty this day was one of the two days that we ate at Vapiano (If you know me, you know that I LOVE Vapiano like it's nobody's business) 

On the second day, we had to move into our actual hostel, which was on the other side of the city, closer to the Hauptbahnhof. But the location of our hostel had lots of pros and one awkward con....it was located in the Red Light District. If you don't know what that is, then you'll probably too young to be reading my posts. (Kidding, but it's the the XXX section of Amsterdam). But! Our hostel was also like located near the shopping areas and there was this AMAZING place around the corner that made THE best waffles known to man. If you ever go to Amsterdam, don't leave without eating a waffle from one of the restaurants near the Floh Markt (I think that's the name of the area, but it's near  the weighing house). So yeah, I think this was the same day that we went to the Stedelijk Museum! We all like split up and explored basically by ourselves but I'm a museum person so I was ecstatic! (I was mainly excited because I initially thought we were going to the Van Gogh Museum but still an art museum with authentic pieces is what I live for)

 

After we were finished with the museum and when we went back home, we had time to do our own individual things until the time when we agreed to have dinner. So being the person I am, I hitting the shopping area and I found a Forever 21 and I was beyond happy (there's no F21's in Germany). But on my way back to the hostel, I got sooooo lost. I ended up in the sketchy area of Amsterdam where there's barely any street lights and then when I found my way out of there, I ended up in the very red section of the Red Light District and I nearly cried cause my battery died and I was so done. But after my period of over exaggeration was done, I literally realized that I just had to cross one of the canals by the big pink elephant theater to get to the hostel. (I was later informed that this wasn't a movie theater, but rather an X rated theater, yup. innocence at it's finest)

I decided to designate a whole paragraph to the cute reception guy at the hostel. He was that cute, that he deserves a whole paragraph. He came from Texas and I'm pretty sure he said his name was Jake....or Sean....but we hit it off after he made fun of me for saying “y'all”. But he called me Jersey and I called him Texas and we could've been a Nicholas Sparks style romance if I lived in Amsterdam....*super sigh*. No but in all honesty, he was like 23, we couldn't have worked out. R.I.P. to our 2 second relationship.

Okay so my fingers are getting tired so let me sum up the rest of the trip in a couple of sentences/random words: VAPIANO x2. Did you know the original Harlem is in the Netherlands? Yeah, it is. I can fully say after biking from Amsterdam to Harlem and back, I'm not made for biking. Soo many canals. I miss Dutch waffles with Nutella and sugar.

PICTURESSS: 

 

I transformed my huge pancake into a crépe

Harlem

Summary of the rest of my Herbstferien: Surprised Sam by visiting him in Kehl. Went to Gießen to visit Molly and the Gießen kids and then again for Molly's birthday. 

SONG TIMEE:

I chose 'Meine Gang' by Cro because I just remember Ling Ling (Sam's host sister Selina) mentioned something about her and her friends making up a fake gang when they were younger and then Sam and I joked about starting our own gang. So here! Meine Gang von Cro! 

Future Overload of Posts #2

So I'm pretty sure I haven't posted since like October or something and now it's February so it's fair to say I'm awful at this but there's a lot of updates concerning my experience here!

So yeah! You guys are gonna be bombarded with a couple of posts! Sorry! (At least I warned you, right?)