Oh right, blog post!

I have been looking forward to this opportunity to be immersed in foreign culture ever since BMEN 101 in the first semester of Freshman year when it was presented to us. At the time, I thought, "Oh wow, that would be pretty cool if I could go..." and that's where it stopped. Thankfully, somewhere between then and now, I was pushed to pursue the opportunity, and here I am now with all of you!

I'm still in the process of packing, adding one or two things every time I pass the suitcase, and I hope I'll be bringing everything I need. That said, hope alone has never done me well in that respect, so I figure I'll be making a couple shopping runs early in the stay...for toothpaste, batteries....something small that would be easy to forget. One of the strangest things about packing is that here in lovely San Antonio, it's pretty consistently been in the mid-seventies every day...so winter clothes just don't seem to fit the season. Good thing we have history and weather reports to tell us that YES, it WILL be cold.

I have lived in Germany once before, but I expect this semester will be very little like those three years--no mother to plan where to go every weekend (although I'm sure she'll still help), no sister to poke on long car-trips, and no father to stay awake and drive while the rest of us catch up on the sleep we missed by waking up at 4 a.m. That said, I am very excited to meet my host family and spend the semester with them. I hope to get to know them well over the semester, and to stay in touch long after this May. Also, I hope my German isn't so horrendous that we stick to English all the time in our conversation; I'd like to learn as much as I can from them in these next four months.

As for goals, I hope to keep my grades up, never waste a day that I could have traveled, and make memories to last a lifetime. Hopefully the traveling bit will include a visit to our old neighbors the Christmanns, meeting with a few friends (one who'll be teaching English in Amsterdam and another who is studying in Rome), and potentially seeing some of my extended family who seem to have all chosen to travel (or work in the conference-hosting industry at a chalet in Switzerland) this spring.

I can't wait for 12:00 p.m. on Sunday, when my plane leaves San Antonio. I will certainly miss my family, but one of the beauties of the modern age is that we have countless ways to communicate--even when 5,000 miles apart.

Tschüß! See everyone soon!