Since going abroad can be so expensive I applied for scholarship called CBYX or the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange, This program is a full scholarship to Germany and sends 250 students from the US to Germany every year as well as sending students from Germany to the US. This program was created to strengthen US-German relations after World War 2.
I was accepted to the program back in April, and I have just recently received my host family. I'll be staying in Langenfeld, a city of 60,000 people, a little different from my town of 5,000. This city is only 30 minuets from two huge cities Dusseldorf which has a population of 600,000 people and Cologne with a population of over a million! I'll be spending my year with a very sporty family and two host brothers. Although my family doesn't play soccer, I hope that I will be able to continue to play while in Germany maybe even for one of the local club teams.
While there I will be attending a type of German school called a gymnasium... unfortunately this is not a type of school which only focuses on gym class :(, but instead the highest level of German high school. My school focuses mainly on science and language. I will have to take a biology, chemistry, physics class and two foreign languages while there. Hopefully my years of science classes in the US will have prepared me for what I will have to take. All of the classes will be taught in German :o, but at least I will pass English class... I hope.
I think that this is the very first time I have ever wanted summer to end. In September all of the kids from the program will meet up in Washington D.C. for a couple of days and then we will all fly over to Germany ready to begin our new experience. It goes without saying that I am beyond excited and I absolutely can't wait to meet all the other kids and head of to Germany.
