I have officially left the American bubble of Schloß Witti and am settling into the Loers' household in Mettmann. I was so excited when my family showed up at camp. It happened perfectly. I was leaving lunch and they drove past me to the parking lot. I started to freak out all American-like. "Y'all, is that my family? Y'ALL THAT'S MY FAMILY." They saw me as well and waved as I ran down to meet them. Now, a prominent fear of exchange students when meeting host families is how exactly to greet them. Do you stay polite and stick with the handshake? Do you go in for the hug and hope for the best? Do you have an awkward combination of the two and reach out for a handshake but then decide on a hug and squish the shaking hands between the two of you? Yep, the third. So that was fun and my family was very okay with hugs. People make Germans out to seem very cold and whatnot, but not my family. :) Honestly, most of the Germans I've met thus far have been a-okay with hugs. I have a family of 5, not including myself. Two sisters, Miriam and Sarah. One brother, Jakob. And my parents are Adelheid and Sami Ali. Miriam came with my hostparents to pick me up and I was pretty excited to see them all there.
My first day here was not nearly as emotional as the alumni/program had me under the impression it would be. I unpacked, had "Kuchen und Tee", and went to the Heimatfest. Heimatfest was on Saturday night and I had the best time. Third Fest since being in Germany, and by far the best. I met my host sisters' friends and we stood in the front of the crowd listening to the coverband. I got hella pumped when I heard the beginning of "Rebel Yell" start playing. There's a lot of American music here, but it's nice because at the Fest it was a pretty even mixture of Deutsch und Englisch. Once it got dark we kept circling back to the crepe stand because it was so cold. I ate my first crepe, and it was filled with Nutella. Sehr lecker. :)
Sunday I mostly slept through, because I have had little to no sleep lately and Sunday is a relaxing day. Best sleep I've ever had. My bed here is so comfy and the blinds pull down outside the window and nearly blackout the room. When I finally did wake up, that's when the whirlwind of emotions got me. I got pretty worried that my host family would think I was a hermit for sleeping all day, but then I figured they would understand that the whole experience is pretty exhausting in the beginning. Then I got worried again because since the moment they picked me up, we've only spoken German. Let me say, I really do appreciate that. I believe I'm going to learn much faster with them pushing me like this and correcting my mistakes. But yesterday, I was a complete mess over it. I was like I SWEAR IM NOT SOCIALLY AWKWARD, I'm just barricaded by a language barrier! I went downstairs for a few minutes but I didn't say anything because I'm not really conversational in German yet, so I quickly went back upstairs. Then I cried because I missed my friends from camp. I know this all sounds absolutely ridiculous, but the amount of feelings that hit you the first few days are sheerly overwhelming. Normal Zoë would never retreat to her room, but Emotional Crazy Zoë did so pretty quickly. I was sad about it too because I honestly really like my host family. They're so nice and have a great sense of humor. Thinking back on this, I have no idea what I was so worried for. But nonetheless, I was worried. My boyfriend, Austin, had agreed to sort of be my anchor this year when things get tough, so when I got that overwhelmed I turned to him. You'd think that being my boyfriend he would soothe me and stay talking to me to cheer me up. But Austin? Nope. He knew that the real me wasn't so pathetic and he told me to get back down there and talk. Even if I made a fool out of myself, at least I would be downstairs trying. I can't put into words how much that helped me, but it made a difference. I went downstairs and I sat on the couch to write. Sarah asked me if I wanted to walk the dog with her, and on the walk I actually understood almost all of what we talked about. Which is a big step for those of you who don't know. The first like month for tons of people is just nodding and laughing when the family laughs. :) Afterwards, we all watched a movie together and I was so grateful for Austin pushing me to reach out and be myself. I adore my family already and I'm so excited to spend this year with them.
Today is Monday, and I start school on Wednesday. We went to the into town to get my visa but I couldn't get it because my hostparents weren't with us. They're at work, so Sarah and Miriam went with me. After that, we went to the school to try and work out my schedule (i think, i'm not sure) and that didn't happen either. I'm still not sure what happened there because the German was so fast. And when I didn't understand, my sisters explained but it was still in German so nope. I BELIEVE I'm shadowing someone on my first day. That's what I got from the conversation. All I understood was "slowly". My German is super, y'all. :P They showed me downtown Mettmann and I must say, I am in love with Mettmann. It's smaller than Bowling Green, but it's so gorgeous and I really adore that I can walk to just about anyones house/the mall/the grocery/school/ ANYWHERE and it's so green! I'll have to post pictures soon.
This is the view of my room from the bed and it's perfect. I love it. :)
So now y'all are completely caught up on my adventure. I think I'll post weekly, probably on Sundays. If you want to keep up with me then that'd be when to check in. :) Hopefully I'll be a tad more brief from now on.
Tschüss!
No comments:
Post a Comment