I got an email!

OK so I'm not yet in Germany, and thus my promise in my last post that my next post would be from Germany has not come to fruition...but I have news! Today I received an awesome email from my soon-to-be host family, and I share it here:

Hello Helen!

Thank you for your letter. Sorry, that I answer just now. But we stay in holidays and so I have not

check the mails. We are happy to have a nice guest and welcome you at Monday.

We are a little family. My husband, Volker, I, and our son Leonard. he is 17 years old. And we have a little cat.

At the evening I work (I `m a fitness trainer) and so my husband, Volker comes to the school and take you home.

See you soon. Have a nice fly!

Mit freundlichem Gruß,

Ines

So many things about the email just make me excited and happy (fitness trainer?! cat?! new little brother?! awesome German names?! ) It's so nice to finally know where I will live in a matter of days, and the family seems warm and welcoming. Woo hoo!

Also, I have made it to my former swampy stomping grounds, Washington DC. As I stayed up far too late last night and participated in far too much debauchery con Katherine in New Orleans, the day was very long. Thus, I am turning in early tonight so I will be 100% for the full day of orientation tomorrow and for meeting my congressional representative. Highlights of today included learning lots of much-needed information (turns out we will be spending two days as a group in Frankfurt upon arrival in Germany for ANOTHER orientation), meeting some really cool and diverse peeps, and asking a German man how much sausage normal German people eat. Hint: the answer is not as much as I ate when I went to Germany.

I have so much more to share already, but nope! Gotta catch some zzzzs and dream of the crazy days to to come from our nation's capitol.

I'm leaving on a flugzeug...

In three days I'll be taking off for DC to start my year-long adventure in the motherland...turns out I actually have German heritage! My grandfather is Swiss so that's old news, but at my Saturday farewell lunch my grandmother on my mom's side informed us that we have roots in Bavaria - ooh! 

Now that I'm authentically German, I feel more prepared to begin this chapter of my youth. The last two months at home have been relaxing, and I shall miss the people and conveniences that are so accessible to me in the USA, but I'm ready to lug my (hopefully) exactly 50-pound suitcases to DC and then across the pond. 

I depart early Thursday morning after a night of what's looking to be debauchery in New Orleans with my sista. From there I'll have three days at Georgetown in DC to get oriented with CBYX and catch up with some lovely friends. On Saturday evening we fly as a group to Frankfurt and I'll be bussing it up with fourteen other participants to Bremen. Then what has been meticulously planned stops and hopefully the fun (and learning/immersion/cultural awakening) commences.

My next post will be from Germany...let the year of wanderlusting begin!

A donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster...

Bremen (the city I'll be in for language school in...two and a half weeks eeee!) is known on this side of the Atlantic primarily for its role in a Grimm brothers fairy tale. I was not aware of such fairy tale until mein Opa und Oma told me about it a while back, but since I have read it many times...a funny introduction to a place I'll soon call home.

The story is called "Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten," or "The Bremen Town Musicians" auf Englisch. It centers around four animals and their adventure in foiling a group of robbers on their journey to Bremen. Read the story here

Bremen has immortalized the cunning foursome in a statue in its town square:

I don't know too much about Bremen yet (other than what's on its Wikipedia page and in Lonely Planet Germany), but I know I'll certainly be visiting the statue and probably hearing the story ad nauseum in the coming months. Hopefully I'll soon be able to read/tell it in German!

In about two weeks I'll head to Washington DC to spend some more time with Honest Abe and get oriented with what I'll be doing in the coming year. Then it's on to Deutschland! Recently it really started to hit me what a change this will be, how long I'll be gone, and what an adventure I'm about to undertake. Tommorow I turn my lucky number, and I certainly hope that the year is filled not so much with luck but rather with serendipity. 

Until then, I attempt to chortle and cachinnate my way through studying for the GRE...