Off To Germany I Go: Let's Talk Orientations

HALLOOOOOOOOO!! Okay well I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write this. I've sat down three separate times to write and I just have not done it..why? God only knows. I just get so distracted and being in GERMANY!!!!! doesn't help much either. Oh yeah so if you've been completely in the dark I am here with my AMAZING host family. But this post is just going to be like a recap from each day so far starting from when I left my house. Then I'll go into more depth about my family, house, location, and such. I do believe Neels will be reading this though...ssssoo shout out to him haha :)

I AM HAPPY.

Those three words just basically describe what's going on with me. I'm just..happy. Like there's no other way to describe it. I've been waiting for so long for this and it just feels unreal that I'm actually sitting on my bed in DEUTSCHLAND! I'll put the pictures of my house in my next post alright? Let's get down to business.

September 6th:
This is gonna be short because I wanna get to the good stuff ya know? Anyways my mother and I were late of course I mean we are the Curry family when are we ever on time? I said goodbye to my father Bobby and my darling dog Sebastian. The crazy monster Titan was in the crate in the back.

Bobby

my luggage

Titan the Terrible

And then this is my Aunt Stephanie with her new kitten we visited

her on our way down to D.C. and dropped off Titan with her.

September 7th:

I just saw some colleges on this day, Georgetown and George Washington to be exact. They were actually really awesome and fun to see. Except by the end of the day I was SO SO SO tired! I went to bed early that night because the next morning I would be picking up ELLLLLEEENNNNNN from the airport pretty early and then we had orientation!

September 8th:

That day was the day I had been waiting for...for one heck of a long time. It was orientation day and I was majorly pumped to just meet everyone and be in Germany I mean come one who wouldn't be. First off was Ronald Reagan Airport which my mother drove around the parking lots for a while not really knowing where to park haha. Then we went inside with my beautiful sign.

I should have gotten a picture of Ellie looking around for us but I sadly did not. We went to lunch at Bertuccis where we honestly had THE funniest waitor EVER. Ellie goes "What's the soup of the day?" then he proceeds to go "I don't know" and like doesn't even say he'll go check immediately then after like 2 minutes of awk silence he says "I'll go check" Man do I love Americans sometimes haha. Then we came across Emma a fellow USA-->Germany AFSer we waved to each other while Ellie ate her veggies. Then we went up to my hotel room and got my luggage (I will review luggage later because I have all the wrongs and none of the rights to talk about from personal experience) When we check in they don't give you any of your stuff until your parent leaves you which I don't think should really matter because I mean what's the problem with them being there an extra minute...? Anyways my mother and I did a quick hug goodbye and some good lucks were thrown in there as well and she was off on her way. There was no crying...like I think it's because I've been away from home before and I KNOW I'm going home like I'm not on Mars plus they have a chance to come visit me ssssoo why waste time wallowing in my sorrows when I can experience this beautiful country!!!

Now actual orientation......it was boring as f***. (Keeping it clean haha) There's not other way to put it. I wish they did more interactive things then just sitting there spewing info at us. Like hello we wanna meet each other. We kinda formed our own little group though like we just became fast friends and I couldn't ask for better people to be sharing this experience with. Let's see some pictures!

us roomies all together!

Amy, Caroline, Ellie, Isabel

Amy, Emily, Me, Caroline(lol), Melanie

ROOMMATE PICTURE!! <3

we stayed up until 2:30 am just talking....

MY TAG!!

September 9th:

That was the day we boarded the plane into the unknown experience that was gonna come I honestly was having freak out moments of "who's idea was this" and "i can't turn back now". But everyone has them and you kinda bond over them I would say. We had a little bit more of orientationing before we all got our luggage and boarded coach buses. They warned us that security would take like hours and stuff but I got through in like 5 minutes. Except here's two stories for ya.

Ellie got directions on where we were supposed to go so Paul and I were kinda absentmindedly following her while chatting about the instruments he plays and the fact that he'll be going to a music school. Well she led us all the way down to security where we saw no other blue shirts...awesome. So we had to go all the way back up these giant escalators and find the group that for some reason we didn't see before. So Ellie really shouldn't lead us anywhere...lesson learned. :) Next while I was going through security the man like took out my makeup remover pads, makeup remover cloths, and like face cleaning pads and since I thought my carry on was just fine I but a lovely lacey bra on top. Let's just say that caused a slightly awkward moment between this little old security man and I....

our last moment in America picture

September 10th:
Now we flew through the night and landed in Frankfurt after a 7 hour plane ride which let me tell you was the plane ride from hell. There was turbulences the WHOLE TIME. Like it never stopped until we were completely over the ocean and then when we got over London..it started again. They weren't even baby turbulences they were huge big momma 700 pound man equivalent turbulences like the plane was going up and down and shaking and I thought we were gonna go down and that would have sucked that I got that far and I was gonna die then....

Bonnie Emily Me Caroline Melanie

on the plane if you can't tell!

Ellie and Amy

After we landed from the worst flight in the world we practically ran all the way to the place where we would be sitting for 1,000,000,000,000 hours. Then we had to change our shirts because of course AFS didn't really think of the fact that us USAers would be wearing the same color as the AFS Germany volunteers. I changed all of my clothes completely though and decided to put on jeggings and my DASH shirt because it made me look a tad bid nicer when I met my family rather then looking like a hobo. I'll post a few pictures but I think that this is where I'll stop for now! I'm gonna write a tips for orientations right after this and then maybe tomorrow night I'll write about from September 11th until now!