Time flies, and you never realize what you had until it's gone!

Being an exchange student is fun, and contains all those wonderfully glorious moments, but at the same time I am ever changing, ever growing. Learning more about life and how things work than I could ever have thought possible. Last week, I found out that my best friend, Raul, is being sent back to Brazil. This has given me a lot to reflect on, and made me realize just how important time was, and now that I look back, I also see, just how fast time flies by. Before going on Exchange, I looked at this year as intimidating, thinking it would be long and drawn out. But it's been the complete opposite. Here I am, more than halfway through, and I am wondering where the first half disappeared to. The thing with Raul is, I have never had a friend as close as him. Ever. And I thought that I had five more months left with him. Five more months of fun, laughter, carelessness, friendship. Five more months before I had to say good bye. Due to the sudden change of events, I now only have a week. A week to say unspoken words and enjoy his presence all the more. When on Exchange, exchange students are your best friends. But Raul is more than that to me-he's family. Only now that he's going, it's different than saying good-bye to my own family. When I said goodbye to them at the airport, I knew exactly when I would be seeing them again. With Raul, it's a mystery. There's a chance I will never see him again. I have never cried so many tears as I have in the past two weeks. He, Kait, and Akseli, have become my family here. People I will never forget-that I never CAN forget. They are such a constant in my life, I simply can't imagine what it's going to be like without them. I didn't think that I would have to wonder about this for another five months, but now it's all thrust into perspective. This shows me how truly special every moment was, and how much I value it. But now I value time even more. It escapes from you in the blink of an eye, leaving you not realizing what you actually had. I knew I had a friend in Raul, and thought he would always be there for me. I know he is, the only difference is, now we are continents apart. There's an expression, "life each day like it's your last" and another, " don't regret anything, because at one point it was exactly what you wanted." I plan on living my life by these. I don't want there to be regrets, only love and fun. I want to jump on all these opportunities, and enjoy every glorious, happy, tragic, hilarious, unbelievable moment that life has to offer. Raul has taught me a lot, and I love him for it. He's shown me how a true friendship is, and I will not forget it. So live for every moment, cause in the next, it could be gone.

I am an Exchange Student!

So this has been going around facebook for a couple of days, and it is so philosophical sounding, I thought I might as well share it!
I am an exchange student.
How do you know what is a dream if you never accomplished one?
How do you know what is an adventure if you never took part in one?
How do you know what is anguish if you never said goodbye to your family and friends with your eyes full of tears?
How do you know what is being desperate, if you never arrived in a place alone and could not understand a word of what everyone else was saying?
How do you know what is diversity if you never lived under the same roof with people from all over the world?
How do you know what is tolerance, if you never had to get used to something different even if you didn’t like it?
How do you know what is autonomy, if you never had the chance to decide something by yourself?
How do you know what it means to grow up, if you never stopped being a child to start a new course?
How do you know what is to be helpless, if you never wanted to hug someone and had a computer screen to prevent you from doing it?
How do you know what is distance, if you never, looking at a map, said “I am so far away”?
How do you know what is a language, if you never had to learn one to make friends?
How do you know what is patriotism, if you never shouted “I love my country” holding a flag in your hands?
How do you know what is the true reality, if you never had the chance to see a lot of them to make one?
How do you know what is an opportunity, if you never caught one?
How do you know what is pride, if you never experienced it for yourself at realising how much you have accomplished?
How do you know what is to seize the day, if you never saw the time running so fast?
How do you know what is a friend, if the circumstances never showed you the true ones?
How do you know what is a family, if you never had one that supported you unconditionally?
How do you know what are borders, if you never crossed yours, to see what there was on the other side?
How do you know what is imagination, if you never thought about the moment when you would go back home?
How do you know the world, if you have never been an exchange student?

Just another lazy week...haha just kidding, I'm in Europe!

Oops, I haven't updated my blog in a little bit, but hopefully this will suffice! In the life of an exchange student, there are never lazy weeks, and hardly ever lazy days. Today is one of those rare days! The past couple of weeks since my last post have been fairly productive. In the last blog I wrote, I had talked about my AMAZING  praktikum, and that the woman I was with was going to let me do a little bit of reporting with her. Well she did something way better! When I walked in that morning she looked at me and said, " Katherine, we all think it's awesome that your're so young and an exchange student! What would you think about doing todays segment on yourself?" umm YES! So that day, it was all about me. Not to sound conceited or anything. We went to my house and had an interview with my host mom, and then one with me in my room. We had shots of me riding my bike, and then also at school, hanging out with my friend Kait! Then we headed back to the office and pieced the segment together! I had to leave before it was finished though. I had to catch a train to Bremen, because a friend was leaving to go back home and I had wanted to go and say good-bye at the airport! Unfortunately I arrived five minutes too late. After the airport I went and hung out with some of the exchange students for a couple of hours, and when I got home that night, I went to watch the segment online! It was so cool! It also aired on the television. I will attach a link at the bottom of the page so you can watch it. Look up 7000 kilometer vom zu haus! All in all, my praktikum was very interesting and a good experience. That weekend, my host family and I packed our bags, and headed for Spiekeroog. Spiekeroog is a small Island located on the North Sea and is about a two hour drive for me. To preserve this Island, cars and other forms aren't allowed on the island, so we had to leave the car in a parking garage and go on a huge cargo ship. It was very cold, and the water was beginning to freeze, so the ship had to make its way through a lot of ice. We went with another family, and all in all there was 11 people. When we got there we had to walk about two miles, and then we reached the "cottage" we were staying in. This cottage was humongous and we all got our own rooms. It was beautiful! The majority of the time we played board games, as it was too cold to go outside. When we did venture out into the cold, we layered up..every time I walked outside i wore three pairs of stockings under neath my jeans, two pairs of gloves, two hats, an undershirt, a shirt, two hoodies, a jacket, this neck warmer thing and another scarf that was long enough to also cover part of my face. I was still freezing. It was about a five mile walk to the beach, and every day we decided to go to the beach, but out of the four times, I only made it there twice. The other two times, I stopped halfway and went back, because I was so cold! But it was a good weekend overall! The next week I went back to school, and it was nice to see my class again. We talked forever, and filled each other on everything that had been going on. That week passed by being pretty uneventful, seeing as it was only a three day week. Then that Saturday, I went to Brake, which is a city about 30 minutes from Oldenburg, and attended the exchange student sleepover. The ski trip to Austria was that week, so about 20 exchange students were missing, and some didn't show up, so out of the 89 exchange students in my district, only about 35-40 exchange students were there. These sleepovers are organized by Rotex, and Rotex is an organization kind of part of Rotary. Its a group of past exchange students, generally all between the ages of 18-24! They're pretty cool, but the sleepovers aren't all that great. The only reason why I like them, is because I get to see everyone again. This was a pretty good sleepover. It was nice to have everyone together again, and I was hanging out with the american girls the whole time, with a couple of the brazilian boys. We had wanted to all sleep together on one of these big mats that they had set up around the gym, so we were lucky enough to be one of the first to grab one, but as we were dragging it to our corner, the boys kept hopping on, making it practically impossible for us to move it. Eventually we were able to claim it for ourselves and set up camp. The ironic thing is we all pulled an all nighter. Not by choice though. Paco wouldn't stop singing "we wish you a merry christmas" and "we found love in a hopeless place". How would you like to be awake from 12, until 5 hearing a mexican exchange student singing very loudly and off key? Very annoying, but positively hilarious. Then Jakub, one of the American boys, came over to us in the middle of the night, and said, "guys, lets make whale sounds" so we did. I must say, I came away from that sleepover with some fond memories.Then this past week was pretty good. On Wednesday I went to Bremen and hung out with like 20 other exchange students, and on Thursday I went to Raul's house with Kait and Akseli, and we had a movie night, which was pretty fun! Then this weekend was really, extremely fun! I went to Norden for another exchange students birthday party, and we spent the night there. Unfortunately my Jugend-Freizeit ticket doesnt work all the way to Norden so I had to pay 7 euros and split a Niedersachsen ticket between me and four other exchange students. Pierre and Larissa met Hanna and I at the train station in Oldenburg and we met Kait and Raul on the train. Train rides are always more interesing when with exchange students! Then my friend Crystal hopped on in Augusfehn and then Gabriel and Rene got on in Leer. It was about a two hour train ride, so we had to keep ourselves entertained, so we ended up singing songs from Disney Classics aka Mary Poppins, Lion King, etc.. Then when we arrived at around 9 in the evening, Piotr's host brother was there to pick us up, the only problem was he could only fit four people in his car, and there were nine of us, all with a ton of luggage. So Hanna, Larissa, Crystal and Gabriel squeezed in the back, and Rene sat in the front, and I sat on his lap, with all the luggage on my lap. A very funny car ride. We had the music full on, and rolled the windows down and we got a lot of stares from passing cars. Anyway, Piotr had rented out this old abandoned factory, so thats where the party was, and we just kinda slept wherever we fell! It was a lot of fun, and there were a lot of people there. The next day we woke up early and walked to the train station to go back to our cities, but we were going to go straight on to Bremen for the Carnaval. We missed the train and had to wait an hour at the train station. Luckily I didn't have to, because my friend offered to drive me home, because Oldenburg is on his way home. Then I dropped off my things, and got on my bike and rode to the bahnhof and got on the same train that my friends had gotten on in Norden. Unfortunately I wasn't able to sit with my friends, because the train was so crowded I couldn't move a foot, let alone look for them! It's always really crowded on Saturdays, cause those game days, when the soccer team Werder Bremen is playing, and the public transportation system is crazy! Anyway, when the train arrived in Bremen, I found them, and it turns out that Kait, Raul, Akseli, Rene, and Gabriel and gotten off in their cities, so it was just me, Pierre, Larissa, Crystal, Hanna, and Gustavo. So then Crystal and Gustavo went off to find the Carnaval and the rest of us went to Pierres house so Hanna could drop off her stuff. Then we went and joined the others at the Carnaval. It wasn't as great as I thought it would be. I had been expecting more people, and more entertainment, but it wasn't bad! Then I got on the train with Hanna and Crystal and went back home. This upcoming weekend, my host family is taking me and my friend Kait to Aachen for their Carnaval, and for that one, I'm dressing up. Carnaval is like this big festival almost all the cities have annually in February, and there's a lot of music and dancing, and crazy costumes. So this week my mission is to find a costume! Wish me luck. Well that's all for now, and I will update soon, I promise. So once again, leave questions or comments! Liebe immer, Katherine