I still don't think that it has completely hit me that I'm leaving for Germany tomorrow! I've been planning this trip for close to four years (those who know me well, I'm sure you aren't surprised =] ), and now it's finally here!

For those of you that don't know, I'll be living in Jena, Germany and studying at Friedrich Schiller Universität. For the first two weeks, I'll be living with my host family, the Wenzels. They have two daughters, Kerstin and Solveig. I've been emailing them since February, and they seem very nice. They have a dog named Paula, too =]

After my homestay I'll move into my apartment and begin taking classes. I don't know too much about my apartment or what classes I'll be taking, but I'm hoping to be able to take courses in German history and culture to finish up my German major requirements. The semster ends in early July, but the lease for my apartment goes until the end of July. I'm hoping to take some longer trips then =]

Once the lease on my apartment is up, I'm going to spend a week in Bad Arolsen, Germany. Bad Arolsen is a super small town, but it's home to the International Tracing Service (ITS) Archive. This archive was only opened a few years ago, and contains thousands and thousands of documents from the Holocaust. Last summer, I attended a seminar at the USHMM in DC that taught me how to use these docuements to learn about the interworkings of a camp and what happened to a prisoner once he/she was placed into the Concentration Camp. I'm working on a project on a women's subcamp of Buchenwald, Leipzig-HASAG, so my research at the ITS will focus on this group of women.

After a week in Bad Arolsen, my parents will come visit! I'm definitely looking forward to their visit, and am excited for the places we're going to see. Right now, the plan is for them to meet me with a car in Bad Arolsen, then we'll go to Berlin, Jena (to show them where I went to school), Prague, and then finish up the trip visiting some smaller towns on the Rhein. We're also hoping to be able to go to a couple of cities my Grandpa went to during the war.

Saying goodbye to my friends was so much harder than I anticipated. 5 months is a long time! Although I know it will fly by before I know it... Still, I don't think I had realized how close we all were until I had to leave. Dinner at Andrew's was awesome, but bittersweet. Thank goodness for skype and facebook!

Tomorrow I have to say goodbye to Clover and my parents. I'm pretty sure saying goodbye to Clover will be the toughest one. I know she has known that something was going to change ever since I started packing a couple weeks ago (she hates suitcases), but I don't know how to explain to her that I'll be back soon =/ I'm hoping my Dad can teach her how to use skype!

I better get back to packing... or shall I say unpacking! Both of my suitcases are still overweight =/ Keep your fingers crossed for the weigh-in tomorrow!