Yes, I actually do still exist. 2 months later, and there's not much to update on, but I'll try to be as detailed as possible for future exchange students.
I'm currently in Boston visiting family, so although I have received the PDO manual that CBYX sends out to exchange students over the summer, I have yet to look through it. From the things the other kids have posted about it, it sounds like its just a pamphlet restating our rules and restrictions but also including a packing list on the back. Ill make a post with details on that when I open it up.
Obviously I've sent out my secondary application, gotten my passport, all that jazz. Ciee actually emailed me a few days ago telling me that I needed more pictures for the host family placement organization (called Experiment, which I find super super creepy but whatever) so it'll probably be a while before I get placed, BUT
There are plenty of ciee kids that have already been given host families. I think the first one was assigned in mid-May, so there's a kind of timeline. :) I'm hoping that I get placed somewhere in southern Germany so I can have the chance to visit my older brother sometime during my 10 months. He will be stationed in Kaiserslautern, so fingers crossed that I'm not too terribly far from him.
I'm not sure if I've mentioned the rules that ciee enforces over there, but there's quite a few. Which is understandable, we wouldn't want some idiot American teenager to cause international issues, but it'll still take some getting used to. It's really funny to me, because, as a 16 year old in Germany, I can drink but I cannot operate any motorized vehicle. I also have to contact the organization if I want to stay overnight somewhere, and then they have to contact my father. OH, and no day trips without someone that's at least 18 years old. So I definitely won't have the freedom I'm used to, but I'm more than willing to trade that for 10 months in a country that I've always wanted to visit.
As for school and credits complications, ill make a post with details on it later this summer. I still have to coordinate how the heck I'm going to graduate while one bazillion miles away from my high school. Senior year in Germany though, wow. Worth it.
