With my Host Family! (Plus what camp life was like)

I meant to post this friday. Whoops!

Tomorrow, I leave Schloß Wittgenstein, and the next chapter of my journey begins. I'll take to train to Marburg, then Frankfurt, and then to Essen where I'll finally get to meet my host family. Tonight, we'll have our talent show, undoubtedly followed by all-night dance parties. Today, the schedule was pretty much as usual. We normally wake up between 7 and 8, or just wake up at 8:30 and sprint to breakfast if you're like me. After a breakfast of bread, nutella, fruit, and more bread, I have 3 hours of German class, with a break in between. We learn a lot in one class, playing games, listening to music, and doing plenty of worksheets. Yeah, there's homework. After class we have about 30 minutes and then lunch, which is inevitably meat and potatoes of some sort. Then, we have some more free time, followed by a plenum meeting. This is when we all meet and talk about cultural differences and such, or do activities and such. I always enjoy them. After plenum we have dinner (something with bread, who would have though?) And then we sometimes have workshops, which could be cooking, card games, sports, pretty much anything. A friend and I taught zumba the other day, which was a blast. Sometimes instead of workshops we have small groups, where we divide into groups of ten formed at the beginning of camp. We have discussions and its sort of a support group for your year abroad. Then we have free time until room check, at 10:15 and then 12:00 on weekends. It's honestly been the best three weeks of my life :)

Post from today:

I'm with my host family!! I arrived Saturday. I have my own room and bathroom, and my village is beautiful!! There's trails in the forest, so I can walk the dog or just go on jogs. It's only day two but I can already tell that running is really going to help me get through rough patches this year. It's so relaxing, and really helps clear my mind even when I feel totally fine. There's not too much to do here, but there are train and bus stations that lead to big cities that are pretty close by. Apparently there's an H&M about 20 minutes away! I still think its so cool that I'm only an hour and a half away from Dortmund, one hour away from Essen, and about twenty minutes from many, many other villages with fitness centers, shops, restaurants, and more. Everything is very accessible, and I'm excited to see the nearby villages. I'm going to try and join a sports club here, probably Fußball (soccer) because there isn't a club for running. Apparently there's a race soon, and I'd love to do that. I'll be completely honest: This is hard. It's really, really hard to keep your head up when homesick but I'm determined! I start school wednesday and I can't wait to meet people. Today was my host mom's birthday, and we had a party. I got to meet some other teenagers from Reken and I had very, very fractured conversations in German. I was so proud of myself though. I'm already picking up german, and I'll only get better.
Tchuss,
Katy