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I am sitting here, with everything packed, waiting. In about thirty minutes, I will be leaving to go to Hamburg. My checked luggage is about 7 kilos overweight, so I will be paying for that for the first flight, but luckily, for my other flights, I should be able to switch stuff over and not have to pay. Hopefully, everything will go as planned and I will get home without any problems. Wish me luck!

meine Zeit in Deustschland ist leider zu Ende

so. I am packed, tired, and ready to fly. Physically, that is. Mentally, I am still not ready to go. All of my friends are sad, and so am I. I don't want to leave them, my family, or this country. I have done a lot since the last time I wrote. I cook traditional american snacks for my host family, which I ended up eating. I cooked my host family an american meal of hamburgers and beer battered pickles. it was very tasty, but took a lot longer than i thought. on wednesday i had my goodbye party. it was a lot of fun. we all ate pizza and enjoyed ourselves. i thought it would be hard to say goodbye then, but it wasn't. but today, man that sucked. my class prepared a going away gift for me, which i didn't know about. i almost, but luckily didn't, cried. it was very hard saying goodbye to all of my friends. I even cried a bit today, which is saying a lot, considering the fact that i hardly ever cry. i do know, however, that i will cry even more tomorrow in the airport. i had a little goodbye party with my best friend, Fabian. it was fun, but short. i just can't wait to skype with him on saturday. it will be the highlight of my day. until then. I will miss you Germany. thanks for being so nice to me.

2 Wochen von letzten Freitag......

2 weeks. only 2 weeks. wow. I never thought my time would go by this fast. It seems like it was only yesterday that I first arrived with all of my fellow YFUers. It is hard to believe that I leave in only two weeks, but still harder to believe that I have spent the last 10, almost 11, months in Germany. I can't really describe the feeling right now. I am not fully aware that in less than two weeks from now I will be a world away. It just hasn't sunk in yet. It is starting to, but, maybe my brain just doesn't want to accept it. I've had so many experiences here, mostly good, but all have been life changing. I am super nervous to see everyone back home and see how they have changed. I just hope it won't be too different than when I left almost 11 months ago. I've missed my prom, senior trip, and graduation, but have made new friends, went on trips to Munich, Berlin, Minden, and many more cities. I have learned a new culture and made friends from all over the world. I have three new families, with whom I hope I will never lose contact. I have ridden a bike more in these past months than in my entire lifetime before. I have a new home. I am a different person. It is simply unbelievable what this exchange year has done for me and I am truly grateful. I can say, as I have said many times before, that I truly do not regret missing my senior year to be on an exchange in Germany. Not one bit. So, enough of my thoughts, here is what I did the past week.

Pretty much nothing. Monday I went to Hamburg and finished buying the majority of the gifts for family back home. The bike I rode to the train station was stolen. It was half my fault and half my host brother's. He rode with my bike to school that day without telling me, so I had to ride with his to the train station, which had a lock, that I didn't know the combination to. So I had to hide it somewhere, unlocked, at the train station. I thought I did a good job at hiding it, but I guess I didn't. It was a very cheap bike, so my host family wasn't angry, thank God. But I still feel really bad about it. On Tuesday, I chilled for the entire day. On Wednesday, I had tennis practice then, afterwards, went to a soccer game and then to the club. On Thursday, I went over to my best friend's house and we grilled. I introduced him to A1 Sauce and KC Masterpiece. He like the KC Masterpiece, but wasn't a big fan of A1. His mom's boyfriend even suggested that A1 would go better with fish. I really wanted to scream BLASPHEMY!!! and jump across the table and hit him, but decided against it. On Friday, I went back to Hamburg to spend the day with the DeShazos, a family from my hometown who where on vacation in Europe. It was a lot of fun just walking around and getting to see Hamburg. We went up into the St. Michael's Church and got to see the city from there and also took a boat tour of the harbor, which is the second largest in Europe. I had a great time. Yesterday, I chilled with an exchange student from Brazil. We had probably the best ice cream ever. It was awesome.

I do have a pretty fully two weeks ahead of me and am going to try to enjoy every last second I have in Germany.