West Texas to Germany: Final Preparations

I'm sitting in the airport in Portland, Maine, having just finished my last few college tours. Getting ready to send in all my applications before I leave. While I am slightly nervous about leaving and skipping all the traditions of my senior year, my worries are overshadowed by my excitement to do something completely new. I am waiting in anticipation to find out my host family assignment. I’m dreaming of the food I know I'll like such as pretzels and bratwurst and also the food I haven't yet experienced. I'm also looking forward to the challenge of rekindling my German language skills. I lived in Germany as a kindergartner and was fluent then, but forgot everything once I moved back to the borderland in Texas. However, probably what I am most excited for is exploring German nature that seems so easily accessible and taking advantage of all the hiking, biking, and other outdoor opportunities that Germany has to offer. 

Preparing for my year in Germany has been quite the challenge. My high school hasn’t had someone go on study abroad in maybe a decade and they don’t seem quite sure what to do with me. I had to finish my senior year at the same time as my junior year, taking college classes online and self-studying for CLEP tests that will cover the last few classes I need for Texas graduation requirements. It has definitely been interesting trying to get it all done at night, during lunch, and on the weekends between sporting events, while still taking AP exams and keeping  up my grades in my regular junior year classes. I’m still not really sure what  will  happen.

But, hoping that I will eventually get a high school diploma, I've also worked with my favorite  teachers to get all of my letters of recommendation lined up and transcripts together so that I can apply to college between August 1st  and when I fly away on August 8th. I know I’ll be busy learning German and settling in, and I don’t want to be thinking too much about the US when I should  be focusing on life in Germany. The one part of my homeland I know I’ll still be thinking about  is the food  here in El Paso. To prepare for that, one of my other important to-do’s is to spend an evening with our family  friend Marisela to get her to teach me her special homemade salsa recipe. 

On the language side of things, I've been doing  my Duolingo, as I'm guessing most other CBYXers have. Not to mention I have been looking through my old German Richard Scarry children's books to try and bring back some vocab, and watching German movies on Netflix. 

The hardest thing will be missing my family and friends for the year. Before school got out, I tried to make a point of saying my goodbyes to the people I won't see again, like my track and lacrosse teammates and coaches and all the teachers and friends in my various clubs. The weekend before school got out, the hiking club did a year end roadtrip to the natural springs at Balmorhea State Park, which was a nice little goodbye. A few friends and I also did a 7 hour road trip up to the rivers and mountains of northern New Mexico for a final camping/fishing trip, our last hoorah together. I still need to make a little more money before I leave, so in about a week I’ll be heading out to work another season as a counselor at a ranch summer camp in West Texas that I have been going to most of my life. 

I’m looking forward to being one of the CBYX bloggers this year. Expect to see some reports on what type of sports or outdoor activities I’ve been doing  and most importantly, what I have been eating. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be good.