What is Foreign Exchange to Me?

"A year of of my life. My life in a year."

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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Germany, I Love You

OfP1030870 all the things I have to be thankful for, curly hair is definitely one of them. Friday evening, my host-brother’s girlfriend decided she would straighten my hair and braid my bangs back… –shivers- Just no. I met up with my friends afterword, the one who picked me up from the bus stop said he almost didn’t recognize me at first, and the one who answered the door yelled to the others in German, “Hey guys! Leo’s brought a girl with him, and it’s defiantly not our Angie!”

It’s been a rather chaotic week, I movedP1030913 to my third and final host-family Monday ( I was supposed to move Friday but to make a long story short, I did Monday). The thought of moving was a lot harder than the actual move simply because my second family became my real P2271351family. I’ll love the Körfers forever. Isa, Achim, and Julien became blood relatives to me. My new house, while very different, is also nice. My host-mom is the great type of different, and speaks really fast, so we get along very well. She frequently tells me I don’t eP2281362at enough, that I need new socks, and a haircut though. To be fair, those are all fair claims. Her personality also reminds me a lot of my Nana’s, so in that sense, I already feel at home.

Tuesday evening I played legitimate badminton for the first time in forever (Alison, be proud) and I cannot begin to describe how much fun I had. The man in charge noticed I had been trained because I “had proper footwork” and invited me to the trainings and matches. I played three mixed doubles matches (so nine games with one boy and one girl on each team) and won all three, and the best part is badminton is twice a week and only a 20 second walk from my house!

It’s getting ridiculous. It used to be when I spoke German, I became unbelievably thirsty because German requires the speaker to use his/her throat so much more than EngSnapshot_20120227lish. Now, on the increasingly rare occasion that I speak English, I feel like I’m drooling all over everything because I don’t have to use my throat for anything and therefore generate 10 times more saliva than necessary.

(Apparently) Sunday I was in the paper (The Press Democrat) in my home town. The imagearticle was the same one written for my school paper back in December, and over 15 different people have written me telling me about it. Apparently it’s a rather large article, and I have to admit, even though I’m not actually in the country, it’s exciting to be in my town’s paper! You can read the article online by clicking HERE!

While exchange is by far the best P2271361decision I have ever made, it’s difficult sometimes. There are kids at my school who come up to me saying, “America is sh*t and fat” and then walk away, and while it’s unpleasant to be on the receiving end of that, it’s why the world needs exchange students! If everyone in the world was an exchange student, I can say with complete certainty there would be no more war. I might be from CalifornP2261343ia, but I live in Germany, and Germany has become my second home. I feel like I’ve known my friends and host-families my entire life, and I care about Germany and Hameln just as much as I care about the United States and Santa Rosa. Exchange students change the world, they share and mix cultures, they make the world a better place.

This past week, I officially booked my return ticket(no I’m not going to post the date, if I did, every time I reread this post it would just make me sad), which was one of the harder parts of my exchange for me. It reminded me that I have to fly back eventually and that I can’t just live in this fantasy adventure forever. Red heart

2 comments:

  1. Dearest Angie!!

    I love your post this week.It's wonderful that your host moms tell you the same things I would lol! You have grown up so much and dad and I are so proud of you. Your awesome attitude is such a wonderful example to all of us. I hope you keep writing because we enjoy hearing about your adventures. All our love, Mom Dad,Nick and Taz

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  2. Judging by what I saw at our last orientation, you DO need some new socks ;)

    Glad everything is going well :)

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Days in Germany