October

Authored By:

Emily G.

Hey everyone! October is coming to an end, fall is starting up, and my life in Germany has become routine. I no longer wake up in the morning and forget for a second that I'm in Germany. I have started to feel more apart of my host family and have gotten more accustomed to my school. The first two weeks of the month were spent on fall break, which had me wondering why don't we have a two week fall break in America! My host family and I took some day trips to big cities in our state and went hiking at one of the highest points in Germany. It was nice getting to spend some time outside before it got too cold!

Although I still don’t know what’s happening in my classes the majority of the time, I successfully presented a presentation in my religion class completely in German. Since being here, i've attended both a Catholic church and a Evangelist church, which I found to be super interesting because they are both so different from what i'm used to back home. My German has also been improving every day! I’ve been starting to understand more and more everyday and little accomplishments like being able to order stamps on my own at the post office keep my hopeful that my German is getting better!

With Halloween only a few days away, I can feel homesickness starting to creep up. I’ll miss being able to dress up with my friends and walk my little sister around our neighborhood, going to search for the best pumpkin and then carving it together, and finally dressing up my dog in the funniest costume I can find. In the past few days though, I have come to realize that I won't be missing out on these activists in America, I'll just be replacing them with new ones here. Last week I showed my family how to carve a pumpkin and told them all of the stories about Halloween back home. I'd say there were definitely impressed on how invested Americans get with Halloween! All in all October has been a great month. It's hard to believe that I am almost a third through my exchnage year. What they say is true, this will be both the best and the fastest year of your life!

Emily