I Hope I Bought Enough Winter Clothes!

I don't know about everyone else but over the holidays I received probably about ten years worth of winter clothes, thanks family. This has been a weird transition, going from a very lazy holiday to rushing and packing and doing some things at the last minute that should have been done earlier, but it won't be long until we are in Germany! The anticipation, from first hearing about this program the fall semester of freshman year, to the Sunday informational classes that we attended this past semester, is almost unbearable now. It's weird to say this but I guess I'm ready for my world to get rocked on January 15th.

Knowing the amounts of hoops and hurdles that I had to jump through and looking at them in retrospect makes me realize the paltriness of some of those obstacles. Life is too short to look see the splayed fringes of a piece of art. Knowing this, I have begun to think about what I want from my experience in Germany and what I wish to learn of myself, because not only will we be able to learn about an awesome culture but I think, in a roundabout way, we will be able to learn much more about ourselves, if we choose to learn. Oh yea, I also want to do well in class! We can't forget about that, guys.

So, about my family. They seem pretty cool. From my communications with them it seems that they have been around a lot of American culture, so hopefully some of my habits from the states won' be too much of a surprise. They all seem like health nuts, which is good because I don't gain too much weight while I'm over here! They have three kids, two boys and one girl. One of the boys is still at home and the other lives elsewhere(I guess for school) and the girl is living in Brussels until March(lucky duck!). I was told that the boys are very into sports and I can't wait to talk soccer with them. It will be weird talking soccer with people instead of football, but definitely weird in a good way.

As for my expectations on travelling... I plan on being pretty busy visiting places while I can! So many places to see, such little time. As of now, I'm still trying to decide whether quantity of places is better than the quality of a place. Also, planning for some of these trips has been a real pain, whether or not to take a plane somewhere, possibly train it there, or take a plane, then train, then boat, then train and back... you get the idea. I guess this is another one of those learning points that says, life doesn't get any easier from here!

Now I'm off to pack. There were some things that I left off from this blog but I'm sure we will be able to talk plenty when we arrive in Bonn, Germany!!

Good luck packing everyone.