Visa, Orientation, and more

Hello!  It's been a pretty busy last few weeks.

Last Sunday I had my pre-departure orientation.  It was a lot of fun. I got a lot of questions answered which made me very happy. In the morning we basically just sat there while they gave our parents information, about money and packing and such.  Then we had lunch. In the afternoon it was more them talking to we students.  They asked us what we expected and who had expectations of us. They also told us that we should expect to get a lot of questions that we may not be able to answer about our government and its foreign policy, as well as a lot of questions that we may think are just super obvious (like if we have a moon in the U.S.)  I also found out that I will indeed be enrolled in a language camp for the first three weeks that I am there. The best part about it was getting to meet the other exchange students.  Especially the other 6 CBYX kids from Minnesota.

On Monday I received  my Visa information from YFU.  Since I will be in Germany for longer than 90 days I need to apply for a residence permit, but I am able to wait until after I get there to do so, so I don't really have to do a whole lot of rushing right now to get that done.  The application however, seemed very simple, not really going into a lot of depth, which I thought was odd, but by all means welcome.


And Last, be certainly not least, I received a letter in the mail containing my temporary, language camp, host family.  For my first month, from July 23rd to August 21st I will be living in the town of Bad Soden - Salmünster, in Hesse.   It's a small-ish town about 45 minutes north-east of Frankfurt.  I'm just glad that it's not in Bavaria :-P   I will have three siblings while I'm there all boys, Christopher - 21, Thomas - 19, and Max - 13.  I'm not sure if the older two will be living there but it's not really a big deal either way.

I'm so happy to finally be getting some info from YFU!  I can't wait to go 55 days until I leave to D.C.

More info to come!

Departure Dates

I got a call from YFU today,  saying they lost my language test and that Germany needed another copy.  Not really a big deal.  Plus that means that my application is in Germany and the search for a host family has begun.

While she was confirming that she had received my new copy she asked me if I had any questions.  I asked her if she knew when exactly we would be leaving.

She told me

• July 20th,  Fly into D.C.
• July 21st,  Orientation in D.C.
• July 22nd,  Leave for Germany
• July 23rd,  Arrive in Germany

She also said that we would be coming back in about mid July of next year.   So this will be a longer year than I had expected.  But that is a good thing.


More info to come.

The big day

So, on Thursday (April 29, 2010)I  got home late and decided to look at Cultures-Shocked and see what was new.  I saw a post by another girl from YFU named Ashley, saying that she had called YFU and they had just finalized the winners and that they "glad" to tell us whether or not we got it if we called them.

Thursday night it was too late to call, so I way up late because I was so excited to find out if I got my scholarship.  I woke up on Friday, got ready and called YFU at 7:02 a.m. (8:02a.m. their time) but to my disappointment they weren't open yet.  I tried calling them a few more times while I was in class, but still they were closed.

At 8:00 a.m. we were released from class to go on a field trip, as I was leaving class I decided to try to call them one more time.   The spot that I was standing in happened to be the only spot in the room that I got service so I had to stand there until somebody answered or I got the machine.  To my delight Monika from YFU answered the phone and I asked her if she had any information on the Congress Bundestag scholarship, she told me that they had picked the finalists and would be glad to tell me.

But her computer was being super slow.  I ended up standing there alone in the classroom for about five minutes while I held the phone silently up to my head waiting for her computer to bring up my file so she could tell me whether or not I got it.  But I didn't have much time and I had to get going so I told her that I was in school and I might lose service, as I started walking she told me that I did indeed win the scholarship.  I was super happy and I was saying something to her, not quite sure what, but then my phone lost service and the call got dropped.

Not that it was a bad thing, anything else that she would have told me probably would have went in one ear and out the other.  The one thing that I did remember her saying is that we'll be receiving our official acceptance letters and packets early this week (today is May 2nd, 2010).

So now starts the very short seeming 12-weeks of preparation.  I didn't even realize how much I actually had to do before I found out that I would be going for sure.

More info to come!