Leaving My American Bubble

“For every ending there is always a new beginning.”

Even though I was in Germany for the month of August, it kind of felt like I was still in America. I was surrounded by Americans and other than language class, we pretty much spoke English. My language camp was my American bubble. On September 1, it was time to leave our American bubble and travel to our host families. I was sad to leave the other exchange students, but I couldn’t wait to meet my host family! This was the day I had been waiting for since finding out that I was a scholarship recipient.

Originally I had two trains to take. I rode my first train with three other exchange students, but once arriving at the Frankfurt train station, I was on my own. I didn’t need to worry. I had all of my information and I only had to change trains once. I was fine. 

We received news that the first train was twenty minutes late. I thought to myself “Ok, trains are late. This happens all the time. Again, everything will be fine.” I looked at my itinerary to see how much time I had to change trains: twenty-five minutes. Yep, that’s right I had twenty-five minutes. But with my first train being twenty minutes late, I had five minutes to travel from platform 20 to platform 6. Long story short, I missed my second train. Everything turned out ok. The man at the ticket counter was really nice and gave me a new itinerary and I was set to go. But this time, I had two more trains to catch.

After missing my second train, I was kind of paranoid. Thankfully, I lucked out. I ended up meeting a really nice lady on my second train and she helped me get to where I needed to be. In the end, I made it to my host family!

I live in Kell am See with my host family. They are absolutely amazing! I have a host dad, host mom, three host sisters, and two host cats. Together we like to hike, bike ride, cook, play board games and more. I like to say I hit the jackpot when it comes to my host family. I am so thankful for the wonderful support system I have.