The Present and the Future Collide

As some of you know, and my profile describes, I will be going to Berlin for the spring semester to study abroad again. This week, I got the final confirmation from the FU-BEST program that I had been accepted, and that I would begin to get more information [like what classes I will be enrolled in and what my host-family assignment is] in the coming months.

I finally now know that I have to be in Berlin on January 9th, which means I leave the United States on January 8th. Honestly, this gives me more time than I expected at home, but I still only have 19 days in the U.S., and only 13 days in Maryland. A slightly terrifying thought, since I will want to see as many people as I can in this time period, as well as get everything ready for Germany.

I have a little less than three months before I will be in Berlin, in a completely new experience. But I feel like I can't think about it too much, because I am still here in Chile and have to remember that I have two months left here, but here are some of my thoughts.

I went back and looked at what I wrote three months before coming here to Chile ["The Process of Getting Ready"], and I was very focused on what this experience would be like, since I had no idea what to expect. Going to Germany, I feel like I have a better idea of what the experience is going to be like. My choices for living situations were to live with a family or live alone in an apartment. Since I am not such a solitary person, I choose to live with a family - which I am very excited about. I also know concretely all the classes that are going to be offered, so I think that there will be less of a hustle and bustle about choosing classes and making sure I will get credit for them. Finally, I've been to Germany twice before and that gives me some confidence that I know what it will be like.

Of course, wait about three months and then you'll see whether my feelings about Germany are the same, or whether all my expectations yielded different results.


[Checkpoint Charlie sign from my trip in the spring...]