Here is a side note: I enjoy singing and dancing with my iPod. When I am in a place and not worried about what other people think (aka. a train station) I don't worry about it and subconsciously start doing both.
Standing in the train station waiting for my train to finally come, I had my iPod just like normal. Then there was a really good Culcha Candela song... I start bobbing my head, mouthing the words, then full on dancing and quietly singing, and I turn around still dancing and I see a boy from school standing there a smiling at me, trying really, really hard not to laugh. I started laughing for him and pulled out my headphones, smiling: "So! Wie geht's?"
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So this weekend was an amazing weekend: five days full of laughs, tango, museums, English, old jokes, Poker, döners, and Americans. : ) Really, a beautiful weekend. I went to my first three classes on Thursday, blew through my presentation on children in the Middle Ages, then happily ran around screaming goodbyes and hugs as I went home to grab my suitcase for Köln and took a small hiking backpack happily onto the train. I met Anne in Düren, and we oozed with happiness and excitement the entire way there. I literally couldn't shut up. We already started laughing and imagining the prospects waiting in store for us in Köln. It was going to a different world, away from host families and German high school and fumbling over grammatical errors.
We made it Köln and met everyone in the Starbucks in the train station, already with 15 of there, we all talked about Köln. A lot of people just weren't looking forward to it, I still can't understand that. Seeing everyone at the Jugendherberge (Youth Hostile) was awesome. Every new arrival was screams and hugs galore! I saw Tiffany vaguely down the hallways and took off sprinting, Josh entered with guitar in hand and I almost put my knee through his guitar hugging him too hard, Dylan came and I immediately left the dinner line to greet him. I was so excited. I sat around and talked with people Thursday night, talking about our year and loving hearing everyone's German. It was so interesting to think that I had looked at these people in such an awe, when they had spoken German to me four months before. Gerd's speeches used to be a time when only two words in a ten minute talk would stick out to me, his first speech to us: I understood everything! EVERYTHING! Every freakin' word! I looked around the table during our first meeting, and everyone's face was such a comfort to me. I could start talking with any one of those people, and I had missed them so much in those four months, but the 6 empty spots at the conference table were unavoidably empty. Laying in Tiffany's bed Thursday night just brought so many smiles to my face as I realized I had just been at this place for 6 hours and I was already running on the highest energies.
Friday was a day in Bonn. I woke up and walked groggily back to my room, throwing on my Texan shirt from Tori E, it had been a great Christmas present. We ran around Bonn, running into stores and assimilating new wardrobes for the boys. My small group didn't see any of the museums, but as a group, we went to the Haus der Geschichte. : ) It had all the history of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland, which is now known simply as Germany. We were supposed to have a tour group in English and one in German, most people wanted German, so we ended up having both groups in German. It was insane. At the beginning of the tour, I was sitting there and absentmindedly listening then a thought occurred to me, "Holy crap, she is speaking German, and I am understanding all of it... That is cool!" I bought a ridiculously huge and heavy book, leaving the museum. That won't be any fun on the airplane, but I already sat down and read some of it last night, enjoying all the information. Friday night was great coming back, I wasn't allowed to join an all boys poker game, so I sat and talked with the girls.
Saturday was a day for seeing Köln! We got up and began the day with walking down the Rhein on our way to the city where we could spend our time doing what we want and going where we want. I must say, every time I see that Köln Dom, my mind jumps to that little model that has been sitting on our breakfast table for five years. I think of all the times that I absentmindedly played with it and ran my fingers around the two towers that dominated the Köln skyline. Every time I am now in the Dom, I look up and around me, and think back to how small our little model is, and I just soak in what it means to stand in this building. Me and Tiffany ran into the famous chocolate museum in Köln! I have heard so much about this place and have never gotten to see it until then! We had heard the warnings about how boring it was, but once we got to the factory part where you saw exactly how the chocolate was made... Not at all boring then. : ) And there was yummy samples! They also had a rainforest set up, so you could see the environment that the cocoa beans grow in and there was the history of chocolate and it's uses. I liked it, and I really liked the bag of very expensive truffles we bought. : ) We came back and sat through a ridiculously long seminar on the rules of our exchange and why those rules exist. Then I came back and had a difficult conversation and was surprised to see how it felt when I got what I wanted. Before I could breathe and accept what even happened, I was pulled out and on a search for tango lessons. It was great just running around and getting my mind off of things. Then even sitting down and listening to people picking at a guitar again, and hugging people just to figure out the theory of hugging, and listening patiently to rules of poker and seeing it all come down to just memorizing the paper of worths. We even got a permit to stay up past curfew for this poker party, the room was rearranged, furniture brought in, someone on drink duty. Talk about legit. I am now ready to play Dustin and Ricky back in Prosper. Bring it on, boys. : ) I was excited for every distraction, and it was just a great day.
Sunday: I got up early and made my way to the Dom for church, it seemed like a once in a lifetime thing. I was shivering the entire time. They do not put heaters in churches that are hundreds of years old! We went back for a huge seminar in the afternoon, already talking about going home and a Berlin seminar in June. I'll be in Berlin in 4 and a half months... I am excited! It was fun just hearing about the future and moving forward. I got my German test from the day before, we were supposed to see how we've improved. I was very satisfied with my test. : ) We made our plans for the evening and went out into the city. Literally skipping in the city and ducking into a place with Karneval music on loop, it was great talking to Billy, Dylan, and Sara. We even started dancing the tango to the Karneval music just because we could. We came back and danced Tango from 9:00 - 11:00, until it was decided that as long as we weren't screaming in the hallways anymore, we could stay up and curfew was nonexistent. Around midnight, we picked up dancing the tango again in the lobby. It was after 3:00 AM before the thought of stopping even occurred because our limbs were getting to tired to handle the five point tango. We were practicing for performing for the Bundestag in June! It will be a lot of work to put together, because we all live in pretty different parts of Germany, but it was still great. It was funny how once you did something that just had sounded so awkward and horrible, then you felt like you were doing the dance right and every move seemed to come easier, it flowed. I fell asleep in mid-sentence talking to Cazaria sometime around 4:00 AM. I was worn out.
Monday: Getting up was difficult. Watching everyone leave felt like the oddest thing ever. When would we see each other again? June? That's too far away. A group of us postponed our trains and went around discovering Köln. We went to a cafe and sat and talked as I almost fell asleep in my little chair, sipping tea. We even danced the tango a little bit in the cafe, working through ideas of what would work to dance in front of the German government of all people! We continued walking around Köln. We found the coolest store ever! You have got to see my Facebook photos if you haven't already! This outdoor store began with just being huge and having a huge pool to test canoes, kayaks, and diving gear. Then walking around and seeing all the cool things: an ice room with a thermal camera, ice chairs with pelts, and a wind machine to test winter jackets; a shower-looking like room where you could put on the water proof gear and just turn on the rain, there was wind there too to make a storm, but we couldn't figure it out (we danced the tango in the rain, technically); then there was a little aquarium filled with jelly fish; a rock climbing walkway, completely glass, where you could try out their shoes; and just so much more! I wanted to buy a nice hiking backpack and a tent so bad and just go on an adventure... I do want to do that more, truthfully. Finally, sitting on the train on my way home came with the weirdest feeling ever. "Back to school. Back to life. Away from the world that doesn't really exist in any other world." I had a great weekend and came back to an overflowing inbox with some of the weirdest news: my world kept going even though I had put it on pause coming to Germany than my German world kept on going when I left Aachen for Köln.
- Bonnie died, my dog since I don't know when, at least 12 years... I still can't believe it. Her cute brown eyes. Her cautious behavior. Her excited run when she saw our car pulling in the driveway. How she treated me like I was still the baby in the house, getting into trouble. I can't imagine going home and not seeing her there. I think my mind is still accepting it as a cruel joke or accepted it as the truth a lot better than I can imagine.
- My family in America is getting a German exchange student next year. I knew that a little while before, but it wasn't exactly official yet. We're getting a girl that actually doesn't live too far away from me here. We've emailed, and I would like to see her soon.
- Colleges still emailing me about my looming senior year and where I will be applying.
I may be here, but my life sure as heck isn't stopping and waiting for me.
