AH!
I am indeed in germany as I can witness by the fact that, while I am on blogspot.com's website (yes, that's .com), everything is in german (auf Deutsch)! Crazyness. But yes, I have arrived, safe and sound. I've actually been online most days since I've been here I just haven't taken the time out to update this. Let's see, was ist passiert?

DC was pretty fun. I do not feel that AFS has good organizing skills or tastes in museums or restaurants, but that's another story (AFS messed up our visit to the state department so we went to the airspace museum. WHAT?! When I asked if we could go to the Holocaust museum - you know, something that actually relates to our next year - I was told that was too depressing. Ummm, yeah...). Anyway. As I remarked before, a very interesting mix of people. It's funny because when I had my CBYX committee interview for the scholarship I remember the woman there saying "Now the 5 of you can hang out while people take turns being interviewed and you guys are all here for the same thing so I'm sure you have a lot in common and you never know; the person sitting next to you could be your best friend for life!" Now I can honestly say that the other 4 people at my committee interview were not people I would have as my best friend aber das ist mir egal. (germans use the word "egal" like we say whatever. It's fun, try it.) But the people at DC, there are a handful who could very easily be my twin and I have so much in common with that I could see knowing them the rest of my life. On the other hand, there are a good 10-15 that I have absolutely NOTHING in common with, and a good 20-30 in the middle. The flight was pretty fun. My attempt at sleeping failed so I read and listened to music. Then we landed and got name tags that told us what train to take to get to our host families for the language camp. Now, coming to germany I knew that the drinking age (for beer/wine) was 16 as was the smoking age. So I told myself my euros would be for a german beer and cigarette (though I guess those are essentially universal but that's besides the point. So we landed at 7:30 and my train left at 9am! That gave me no time to go get a beer with friends which was frustrating because other people's trains didn't leave until 3 and 4 pm. Boooo. We took the train from the airport to the train station, where we had less than 4 MINUTES to switch trains. Yes, you read correctly, 4 minutes to get 20 kids from one train to another with all their luggage, and you know how punctual those germans are! With the help of some serious running (during which I laughed the entire time) we made it on the train. OH, I forgot the details of my name tag. So I knew nothing about this temporary host family except the name Ingrid Casper-Kunz and on my name tag it said "Telefon: ". Yes, that's right, they didn't even have a telephone number listed. Luckily I was sleep deprived enough to not really care but when I got to the train station they searched me out and found me (the mother and father). Now, we'd heard about german modesty and handshakes and lack of affection - could not have been farther from the truth. I went to shake my host mothers hand but instead got a huge hug. I then shook my host father's hand, after which he gave me a hug. And from what I've seen walking around, germans are quite affectionate, so disregard that rumor. I have a host sister who is 18 and studied in Thailand for a year with AFS and a host brother who is 20 and done his Zivildienst (required german male military/civilian service at 18 y.o.) and there is also another brother but he doesn't live at home. So yes, what else. Language camp is going well - very easy. I definitely think I was the cutoff of intermediate/advanced but it's fine, it's easier that way.

Things I've noticed about Germany:
The spiders are quite large. I do not appreciate this.
People do not jay walk. I cannot fathom why they don't, but they just do not do it.
German children are much cuter than american children and much better behaved (in general).

I've begun compiling a list on things I like better in germany vs. the US. So far the only thing the US has on germay is toilets - hier they are poorly engineered. I'll take a picture later to show. I can already feel my english declining, especially my spelling (as I'm sure you'll notice) but on a good note I can understand pretty much everything here (or at least the important things) and as far as speaking goes - ehhhh, it's coming. Hah. Last night I watched the news (they showed the planes crashing into the towers again which was weird because I don't think I've seen that since 9/11 and people in the US are SO sensitive about showing it) and then Mean Girls, in german. So good. Oh yes, my host mother. So funny, love her. If you have seen the incredibles, think of Edna Mode, but a bit thicker in the waist and you have my host mother. Also, many germans think 9/11 was a government organized thing used to start the war. Interesting...