Following the Paper Trail...

Sent off all of the paperwork to the travel agency this morning. All that's left is the airline ticket. :) 

I am faced with a maximum of 38 days left in these great United States of America, but I'm finding that fact to be very..tedious. Thirty-eight days seems to be thirty-seven and one half days too many. I remember that I was already counting down the days when I was at eighty-odd days. That was an unbelievably long time ago...that was when I was still wondering whether I would be in Mainz or Idar-Oberstein. It blows my mind that I'll be in Berlin. I can say that Ich bin Berliner...and be telling the world that not only am I a jelly doughnut, I am one who lives in Berlin. Or, will in a matter of days. Mind. Blown. And I know that's the thing that will continually come up, even when I'm actually in Deutschland, but I still can't believe that I'm going to Berlin, and I'm absolutely sure that I still won't be able to believe it when I'm there. 

My life changed in the most fantastic and amazing way possible when I filled out that simple piece of paper that asked me what my hobbies are and why I wanted to do an exchange. There's no going back - I'm an exchange student now. Even though my exchange hasn't started in the I'm-in-another-country way, the way I think, the way I act, the way I see things has changed. I've thought about how I'm going to introduce myself, coming up with multiple ways of using my extremely limited German without looking up anything. I've started limiting myself on what I can wear, to accustom myself to the smaller wardrobe I'll be taking with me. I've already started saying my goodbyes - to my school, my teachers, the little things that always make me feel better at home that I won't be able to take with me. In roughly thirty days, I'll start packing a year of my life into one suitcase and a backpack, knowing that what I'll get from the effort (trust me, choosing a suitcase and backpack's worth of stuff will definitely be an effort. We're talking a year here, in one suitcase and a backpack. I'm a teenage girl, remember.) will be impossible to pack, and something that I will never forget and cherish my entire life. Any pain that comes from this experience will be so outweighed by all of the wonderful things that I'll get from it that in the end, I doubt I'll even remember the hardships I faced.

Oh, I know it's going to be hard. Every RYES knows it, but the thing that makes us RYES is the fact that we're crazy enough to forget about that for long enough to get on the plane. Or at least strong enough to get on the plane in spite of what we're afraid of. I never knew how strong I was until I realized that I'm really doing this. I'll never forget that it was a Rotary Youth Exchange that made me realize who I am, before I even got on the plane.