I know I've been m.i.a. for over 2 months now, my apologies, I've just been here, there, and everywhere.
My papers just came today with the information about my return flight. It's such a horrible feeling to now that I have to leave my home to go back in less than 2 months. I can't really describe the feeling, except to say that it's a very unsettling emotion. I'm going to be coming back to what used to be my home, but I've been gone for a year. I haven't seen my parents for a year. I haven't seen my friends for a year. I haven't seen anything in my town for a year. I can't even begin to imagine how everything has changed, especially the people. I know I've changed drastically as a person. Not so much physically as mentally; I feel like a new person. I can't help but wonder how this is going to affect old friendships. I've already seen 2 friends from America here in Germany. One of those meetings went perfectly fine; one was borderline disaster. I don't want to lose friends because of this year, but at the same time, I refuse to turn back into the person I was before I came just to maintain friendships. And then there are the friendships I've made here to take into account. I'm sure that because I moved around a lot as a child, it helped because I knew how to meet people. But still, I'm constantly astounded by how many friends I've made this year and how close several of the relationships are. I've been told by at least 5 people that I shouldn't go home, instead I should "wander aus" (emigrate). It's such a horrible and amazing thing to hear that: to know how great my friends here are, and to know how horrible it's going to have to be leaving them. I would love to stay here and do another year with these people; they're some of the most incredible people I've met. I'm excited to come back and go to college, but at the same time, I absolutely positively do not want to leave here. This is my home. I'm considering what it would be like to stay for another year to perfect my german and then perhaps study at a german university. It'd be a helluva lot cheaper (1,000 euros per year) and to then come back and do my masters in the states. What's also hard is that I keep meeting new people, more amazing people. But the question always looms "when do you actually go back" and I think there's a fear that people don't want to actually take to time to get to know me, knowing I'm leaving so soon. This is particularly hard when I meet new people who I really like and could see knowing for my life or building a serious relationship with, only to hear that, understandably so, it's not what they want, knowing I'll be leaving shortly.
Regardless of all that, I've definitely had the best year of my life, and I'd recommend doing this to a lot of people. I think it takes a certain person to make the year work, but for those that can do it... There's no better experience in life.

So I've been traveling quite a bit; I'll do some quick updates on where I've been.

I just got back from what is arguably the most liberal city in all of the world, and the city with the highest percentage of blood-shot eyed inhabitants: Amsterdam. I went up with a friend from my program, the girl with whom I went to Köln for Karnival. We had a great time in the city. We also had great weather, a little cool but always sunny. We stayed at a little hostel outside of the city in the country that was all little cabins like people attach to their cars to travel with and some hammocks. Very relaxing environment. We'd go into the city everyday and then come back in the evening and just wind down in the hammocks with our iPods. I must tell a quick story though that was something I found absolutely shocking, but in an amazingly good way. I got in on sunday about 3 hours before my friend did so I decided to go out and walk around the city. I went into a little coffeeshop and was sitting down when a father and his two daughters walked in. I would estimate that the older daughter was about 18 and the younger maybe 15 or 16. Seeing as this was a coffeeshop in amsterdam, they lit up a joint. The older daughter took the first hit and then passed it to the younger sister, but she didn't want any so she passed it to the father and they shared it. A little while later the mother walked in, sat down, and they lit up another joint for the 3 that were smoking. The kicker is that they were speaking american english. My friend and I went back to the coffeeshop a couple days later and the sisters were there again so I asked where they were from and she said Long Island. I found it astounding that there are americans who are liberal enough to come to amsterdam with their children and allow them to smoke marijuana, let alone smoke with them. It was very refreshing to see americans in europe who acted as europeans, and not the typical american tourist (side note: I'm so sick and tired of american tourists that when I go anywhere I consider myself a german tourist). But yes, the city was very pretty. We went and walked around the red light district but unfortunately only during the day, as we couldn't get a late bus back to the hostel. There are little doors that have a large pane of glass and there are just women inside wearing a bra and a thong. Men (and women) walk by and decide which one they want and then they step inside and they draw a curtain across the glass pane, very simple. What I found interesting was the various types of women: black, white, latina, tall, short, skinny, fat, muscular. I think there was truly something for every taste. I really enjoyed the trip and the city, but I don't think it'd be a city where I'd like to live.

In march I went up to Copenhagen during my spring break. When my host parents lived in Paris, my host dad worked with a guy and he and his family now live in Copenhagen, so I got to stay with them. Or wait, I should qualify that: This guy's family lives in Copenhagen, he lives there on the weekend. From monday-friday he works in Strasburg, France and then flies home for the weekend. It was really cool though because he is german, and his wife is norwegan but they met while studying in germany at university. They have 2 daughters that speak German with dad, Norwegan with Mom, Danish in Public, and are learning english and french in school (at least the older daughter, the younger one was only 5 or 6). A very multi-cultural, multi-language family. They lived just outside the city, in a beautiful area where the Danish film director Susanne Bier lives (if you saw the Danish film 'After the Wedding' you'll know that's a big deal). The two daughters ride horses and both have their own horses which they store in a community stable near the house. They were only a couple stops with the train from the center of the city though. And the city... Oh my, what a beautiful city. Absolutely, stunningly beautiful city filled with amazingly attractive people who all spoke perfect english with the best accent I've ever heard. Copenhagen is now tied with Paris in my book for most beautiful cities, although paris has an edge because they speak french, which is a much prettier language than Danish (no offense). However, living in Copenhagen is VERY expensive. They take Euros but have their own currency: the Krone. The exchange rate was rougly 1 dollar = 4.5 Krones. Seems like a good deal, right? WRONG! I went to get lunch one day and got a baguette sandwich that cost 45 krones. This was the price I saw everywhere for lunch, so I was fine with paying it (I didn't know the exchange rate at this point). I asked to pay in euros and the girl hit a button on the cash register that converted 45 krones into a little over 6 euros. A little over 6 euros is about 10 dollars. OUCH. Also, to buy a car in Denmark is very expensive because they are all imported. My hosts told me that a car price in denmark is 100% of the car's value + 180% of the cars value + 50% tax (I'm fudging on the 50%, I can't remember exactly what it was, but regardless, a car there is VERY expensive). Needless to say, EVERYBODY bikes, walks, and rides the metro/buses. I got to go visit the Mermaid on the rock. She's quite small, but very cute. You have to pity the poor thing though. She's been draped in muslim dress and head scarf to protest Turkey joining the EU, she's had her arm sawed off several times, she's been decapitated numerous times, and (my personal favorite) blown off her rock with dynamite. But she keeps chilling on her rock after all that. Legend says that after a couple hundred years she'll turn back into a person. Only time will tell...

Well I think I'm going to wrap this up. I can't promise any more updates, but I'll try and get better at posting something.

I hope everybody is doing well.