Soup of life: week 1

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. The past week has been a whirlwind of activities. information and new places. Following directions, following maps, following people. Today is Monday and just more than a week ago I was at home packing a big ass blue suitcase and hoping that it would weigh less than 50 pounds at the airport. I hosted a goodbye party with my friends, we watched Jurassic Park at the city park in Creswell, OR, and I tried my best to stay on track as the hours on the clock ticked down until it was time to leave for the airport. I spent the mornings trying to capture everything I love about Oregon and my home on camera for future reference, resulting in many good photos to share with my host families. Woot!

Union Station

Last Monday Aug 3 I flew to Washington DC for 2 days of program orientation with my fellow ASSE CBYX delegates (50 of the 250 cbyx participants). Together we represent all of the northwestern states including HI and AL. I found out that I will be the only CBYX ASSE exchange student near Leipzig, though I hope that there will be someone else from another exchange program there

The Smithsonians! (aerospace museum)

Oregon cbyx 2015!!

In D.C. we perfected the art of being tourists, and like contestants on a weird gameshow we were handed $10 for lunch and given a schedule of appointments to meet with our state senators and house representatives (or their representatives)! It was so much fun to talk about the program!

Peter DeFazio's assistant and I talked about CBYX,  and living in Eugene/Springfield area

On Wednesday we all visited the State Department and toured the Dulles airport before our United Airlines redeye to Frankfurt. On the plane our seats were scattered around, and I got the chance to sit with our in flight ASSE escort, Rome. He told me about living in Laguna Beach and working for the exchange program as well as teaching high school history, amongst other subjects.
If you were wondering, yes there were at least three babies on the flight. I can still hear them ringing in my ears, but despite this, I managed 4 or so hours of sleep on the plane and my jet lag corrected itself within the first day.

We split into language camp groups (Dusseldorf, Aachen, and Hamburg) and took the train from Frankfurt to Hamburg. There we all split again to meet host families and settle in.
Today (after three full days of German experiences) we started language camp in our respective cities. Class is very fun!!! 

In Hamburg I have two host families because I am here in the middle of summer vacation when they travel! Together we all had the weekend to relax, become bilingual, cook German and American food, and get to know each other.  In case you were wondering, Nutella and bread rolls are very very good here. In the near future I will write a post dedicated to German foods because if I start now, this post will be too long for anyone to read in one sitting! Ok. Here are some pictures of my first week in Germany. Tschuss!

My host sister and me!

The Igel of Buxtehude

Can you find the wind turbines?

Spaghetti Ice Cream!!