Check out the other parts here.

Much can happen within the course of a whole year, there is always something. My year abroad as an exchange student, however, was even more eventful than any regular year would have been. Sadly, many things that happened in the very beginning are missing from my memory because of everything that has been going on ever since.

But I kept a diary in which I outlined my new daily life from day one until October 17, 2005. I suppose that by then, a good three months into my adventure, I had gotten used to my American life and many things didn’t seem worth mentioning anymore. Regular entries pick up again on November 10 that same year but continue only for another month. After that nothing about my High School Year is documented anymore. Not by myself, anyway. As easy as it is to recall almost excruciating details by reading one of these entries, it’s just as easy to forget the days I didn’t write about.

At the same time, there are certain moments, conversations, and sceneries that I remember as vividly as if it hadn’t been over three years already since I first set foot on American soil.

I can’t imagine anyone ever awaiting a day with more excitement and hope than I did July 27 of 2005. It had been a hot summer, filled with preparation for my year abroad and although the moment of seperation came crawling closer and closer, I don’t remember feeling shaken up about it. I was busy making lists of things to pack and buying random - as I would later realize, embarassing was a much more appropriate term - gifts to bring. I was in constant contact with Andrea and it only seemed natural to finally meet her and the rest of the Kentucky gang in person.

On July 27, a Thursday, I kept busy until there was nothing left to take care of. Everything was packed, I had my passport, I had my visa, I had EF travel guides, I had my flight schedule and even though I was more than ready to go, I couldn’t help but tear up upon walking out the door. Both my parents and, of course, my brother were going to take me to the local Hannover airport from where my plane to Frankfurt International Airport would leave around 1.30 in the afternoon. I suppose, it’s not surprising that I ended up crying a little after all, but at the time I hadn’t expected it. It came over me in one sudden and short wave in the realization that I was willingly giving up my daily routine, my room, my kitchen, my bathroom, and my TV but I found soon that it wasn’t because I had to say goodbye to my family. I knew I would see them again soon and, maybe even more importantly, I knew that I had only good things to look forward to. Although, obviously, nothing about my year abroad was set in stone at this time, nothing was certain and even my host family could always turn out to be terrible inspite of the obvious counter evidence underlined by the entirely positive feeling in my guts and in my heart; although nothing about this spelled out security, I had never felt as content and doubtless about anything in my life.

The drive to the airport took us not much longer than an hour. I had calmed down which meant nothing else but that I didn’t cry anymore. Inside, a storm was raging. My mom’s eyes looked alarmingly watery the whole way there and she kept turning around to me, smiling encouragingly. Looking back, I guess she probably needed the encouragement more than I did because as soon as we entered the airport, I couldn’t think of anything else but to board the plane, get the traveling part over with and dive head first into my new American life.

As I was checking in which appeared to be an endless, confusing undertaking, my mom went to the bathroom and when I went after her minutes later, I found her re-doing her make-up in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to hide her tears as I walked in.

Never having been of the openly emotional kind, I had trouble responding to her.
“Mom, what the hell are you crying about?”, I said.
“You’re leaving”, she replied, throwing the answer at me with an accusing tone to her voice.
“But I’ll be back.”
“In eleven months“, she’d throw right back at me. And although I did understand where she was coming from, I tried pretty hard to keep myself together and couldn’t deal with her tears.
“Today is a happy day, mom. Remember? I am making my dream come true”, I reasoned. “You are making my dream come true.” I handed her some paper towels to dry her hands. “And while I am very grateful for that, I need you to please keep your shit together, alright?”
“Alright”, she laughed weakly and we went back to the terminals.

Today is a happy day, I whispered to myself and smiled. I wish there was something more romantic to tell about the airport scene because it seems that’s the way it’s supposed to go; tears, love proclamations, over-usage of tissues - what have you. But all there’s to it, was lots of waiting, a hug from everybody, best wishes, me smiling with a revolting stomach and off I went.

I remember wearing my favorite dark jeans, the black belt with the silver buckle, my dark brown sneakers, my white shirt and a dark black sweater jacket over it. I had my hair blow-dried and brushed and wore my favorite ear rings and although only 16 years of age, with unplugged bushy eyebrows and handbraided bracelets supporting various English soccer teams around my wrist, I felt incredibly grown-up. The Lufthansa ground staff welcomed me with motherly smiles and as I stepped through the metal detector, it beeped and for the first but definitely not the last time on this trip, I was asked to take off my belt and step through the gate again.

This time, it did not beep and I diappeared through the glass doors into the restricted area while waving goodbye to my parents at last, and ahead of me lay a brand new world that included duty-free shopping, waiting areas with black leather seats and other equally sleek furniture and, soon but not soon enough, America.

At this point, I hadn’t fully realized that, time difference included, it would take another twenty-eight hours and checking in and out of four more airports until I could finally meet my host family in person.

As said before, my plane from Hannover to Frankfurt, Germany left at 1.30 in the afternoon and this particular plane was, albeit nice and Lufthansa-y, extremely small. The last time I had been on a plane was roughly six years ago when I went on vacation to Tenerife off the North-West African coast with my family, and that particular plane had been much bigger. I didn’t remember the narrow aisle, the snapping seat belts, the noise of the engine or the pressure when the plane lifts off the ground. Maybe I didn’t remember because I had only been ten years old when we went to Tenerife. But maybe, all this time, my happy, excited mind had subconsciously skipped the part of my dream where I would be thousands of feet up in the air. On the flight from Hannover to Frankfurt all I could do was hope that the transatlantic plane was going to be considerably larger and less bumpy and toylike.

At Frankfurt airport, one of the biggest and most important European airports, I didn’t feel all that grown-up much longer when two EF staff members welcomed me and led me to a large, chatty group of students from all over the world who, on that day, started their adventures abroad with a stop in Frankfurt as well. The EF staff was responsible for seating all of us on the correct planes to our destinations and while many of the others were to go to the United States just like me, quite a few were about to spend EF High School Years in Costa Rica, China and Australia or as close as Italy and the United Kingdom.

Out of thirty students, no fewer than half had tickets to America. Thus, I was rather surprised when only one guy named Jens actually had the same destination airport as me: O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. Just the fact that I was going to Chicago, and never mind that I was probably not to leave the airport at any given time, had me excited in a stupidly charming way. Chicago, to me, was a real American city and a large one, at that. Movies were set in Chicago, it was mentioned in televsion series and played an imporant role in the world of sports and cars and food. Unlike the small town in Kentucky where I was going to spend my High School Year, Chicago was a city people knew. Prior to my departure, I had always sprinkled this information about my trip into conversations in an attempt to impress friends and family.

“So, are you excited about your trip yet?” an uncle might ask and, glooming with pride, I’d nod my head.
“Yeah, sure”, I would reply casually, “In fact, I’m probably most excited about Chicago. You know, I’ll be passing through there on my way down to Kentucky.”
“Wow”, the uncle would exclaim, “Chicago, huh? That’s neat.”
“Well, they say it’s one of the most dangerous cities and airports in the world but, you know, personally I’m not all that worried. It’s Chicago, right? What can go wrong with that?”
Basically, I would try to play it cool when in actuality, I’d feel pretty intimitated by O’Hare upon arrival.

The flight across the Atlantic was as uneventful as one would usually wish any flight to be but at the time, it seemed torturous to me. We were in the air for about nine and a half hours and although flying Lufthansa’s economy class is more comfortable than, say, swimming to America or riding from here to China in the trunk of an old Volkswagen, my legs and back hurt after the nine hours were up. The fact that I had been up for almost twenty-five hours by the time Chicago slowly shifted closer on the little screen right in front of me, didn’t necessarily make things better. Nor did the realization that by landing at O’Hare, I had only made it through half of my trip.

Chicago airport was huge and confusing and, somehow, I remember it being very fawn. We arrived sometime around 9 or 10 at night local time which, honestly, didn’t make much of a difference to my messed up sense of time anymore. We, meaning Jens and myself, had a ten-hour layover in Chicago and had been told to look out for someone from EF for we were to stay at an airport hotel and catch some sleep. When we finally found three EF guys who, by the way, did their best to fulfill the clichés, what with their tennis shoes, huge lettering on XXL shirts and matching baseball caps, it was after eleven.

They took us outside to wait for a cab and only then did it finally occur to me that I had made it. I was here, I was in America, in Chicago of all places. I remember a white stretch-limo parking right in front of us and everybody around me talking American English and as I looked up into the dark Chicago sky and the planes flying across, as I smelled car exhaustion from all the SUVs waiting in line to pick up seemingly anyone who wasn’t us, I didn’t feel alone - although looking back it seems like the logical emotion to experience. I felt tired and hungry and I had needed to go to the bathroom for hours but being there felt absolutely right.

All that had taken over my life these past months, from working for a better grade in Math class to getting my visa, from goodbye parties to packing - it all was about to pay off, it all was beginning right now.

We met up with other international exchange students traveling with EF and the three guys checked their lists and although at first I still had the hope that they didn’t go through them alphabetically, I soon realized that I had, in fact, been left out. I wasn’t listed.

“Well, shit, there’s always one”, laughed the oldest of the EF guys and slapped me on the back. “But don’t worry, we’ll figure something out.” I think I managed a smile. It was probably good that I was so goddamned tired, otherwise I would have had a nervous breakdown. Feeling as dizzy and happy as I did, though, I didn’t have the energy to worry.

It took EF until after midnight to find a bed for me and when I quickly brushed my teeth before sinking into it, I noticed the rings under my eyes and how my perfectly blow-dried-into-shape hair looked awful and that one of my ear piercings had become infected. Wonderful, I thought sarcastically. But as I crawled into bed, feeling like stone and knowing that I only had three hours to sleep before I had to rise and shine again, rise and shine in Chicago, away from home, finally on this adventure, it all truly did feel wonderful.

That night I dreamed of my host family and what I imagined their day looked like, how - when I had been up for four hours the next morning - they would also get up and get dressed and have breakfast and take care of the dogs and watch some televsion and then come and pick me up from Bluegrass Airport. How, the morning after that, I would be a part of it.

To be continued…

Catch up on the story by reading part 1 and part 2.

Part of the reason why I was so psyched about going was that all preparation had gone exceptionally well.

I was lucky enough to experience the best possible processing of finding my host family and planning the whole year. My mom was a huge help with everything official that needed to be taken care of before take-off like the visa (while my dad never really got involved at all), EF forwarded my file to an Regional Coordinator (RC), who then forwarded it to my International Exchange Coordinator (IEC), who’s job it was, then, to place me with a host family that would fit me best.

EF systematically divide the United States up in five regions: Western states, Southern states, the Mid-West, the North-Eastern states (New England) and Montane states (Rocky Mountains). Each region is coordinated by an RC. EF also offer definite placement in either California or Florida for an additional fee of 800 euros ($ 1,240) which I found ridiculous. I personally didn’t have any particular interest in either state just because they were typical tourist spots. I didn’t want to pay this much money just to end up in the Californian desert.

EF also informed all students that, although departures were usually scheduled in June and July, it sometimes took until mid-June to find RCs, IECs and host families. We were not to be worried about that; apparently, it didn’t mean anything and happened all the time.

In late March of 2005 - way earlier than I ever could have imagined - EF contacted me and told me that I had been placed with an IEC in Kentucky. With the confirmation letter came a brochure about Kentucky as well as about Southern states in general. It also included yet another note, saying that it may take until June for my IEC to find the perfect host family for me.

At this point, I was already glowing with excitement. Finally, I was getting started!

On April 6, 2005 - again, so much earlier than I ever expected - my IEC contacted me for the first time by email. I was unbelievably excited and happy: after all, this could mean that I’d know about my host family before June! My IEC’s name was Susan and here’s her first email to me:

Katharina,
I’m your IEC with EF from Kentucky. I’m excited that I will be placing you in my area. I am trying very hard to find just the right family for you that will provide you with a wonderful American experience. If you have any questions please email me at —. I look forward to seeing you in August.

Now, I’m sure everybody would agree instantly that this wasn’t the most heartfelt email, not even all that informative. But I was flying. My first contact to someone American, to my IEC, someone I hopefully wouldn’t have to deal with much (seeing as during the High School Year IECs were mostly there to help a student out when they had problems with their host family) but also someone who was going to decide with whom I would spend the whole next year.

On April 8, 2005, only two days after my first contact to Susan, she sent me another email. The email’s subject was, GOOD NEWS!!!!!! Yeah, with six exclamation marks. Obviously, the good news were that Susan had already found me a host family. A family that practically lived right behind Susan, a family that had hosted before and couldn’t wait to do it again. Susan shortly described the family to me - one boy, two little girls, two dogs, a cat and rather young parents, Andrea and Steve - and I was literally running through the house screaming. I called up my mom at work with trembling fingers because THIS WAS AMAZING.

Knowing who my host family was this early would give me over four months to get to know them before actually getting there. Things seriously couldn’t have been better.

The next day, on April 9, Andrea - my future host mom - emailed me and told me about her family, their everyday life and her experiences with previous exchange students. They had hosted twice with EF before and once without an organisation. Susan had informed me that at least two other exchange students - Linn from Norway and Dora from Taiwan - would live in the immediate neighborhood and Andrea said this was part of why they had decided to host again; it would make things more fun for me, she said. At this point, I was beyond excited. I couldn’t even share my excitement with anyone because nobody understood how happy I really was. Although I certainly had hoped for it, I never expected things to go this well.

I was starved for some pictures as I imagine anyone would be who’s off to spend a year in a new place. I wanted to know what my new family looked like and their home, my room and the neighborhood. I had heard that Americans usually have bigger houses than Europeans but so far I had only ever seen the typical American home in the movies. I never would have thought that movie houses were in fact real American houses. To this point, houses in the movies were surreal to me. When Andrea sent me picture for the first time, I realized that, no, that’s not what movie houses look like. That’s what American houses look like and since most movies are American these days, they end up in the movies. It may sound stupid, but this was an astonishing discovery for me.

These are some of the pictures Andrea sent with one of her first emails to me (I didn’t have the originals saved anymore, so I had to photograph printed versions):

Steve, Kennedy, Andrea and Regan - my amazing host family - on the garage’s backside deck, later affectionately christened THE BEERDECK. Plus, their friend Scott’s dog Chewy peeking out from behind Steve.

Their beautiful, beautiful home. My room was going to be above the garage, Andrea told me.

Part of the family room. That gigantic TV as well as the bar on the right equaled paradise to me during my first weeks with them. During daily life, I then took them for granted.

The deck on the backside of the house. This also became a random part of my daily life, obviously, but when I first saw all this I couldn’t believe how incredibly beautiful and wealthy it all looked. This is also were I sat down and had some lemonade right after I landed and first met Scott who would become one of my greatest friends and Troy who, six months later, would turn out to be a disappointment.

Kennedy, my little angel.

Over the course of the next months, I continously emailed both Andrea and Susan and they also exchanged a couple of emails with my parents. By July, I felt as though I had known both families forever and any doubts or fears about leaving home that might have still been there were blown away.

It was also in July that Susan started closing her emails with a countdown, just like in this email from July 4, 2005:

OK you CRAZY girl,
I have decided that Andrea can’t have you because you are just too much fun!!!! I really like you[r] attitude on life.
Now it’s 22 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Normally, the over-usage of exclamation marks would have annoyed me but oh, was it ever appropriate. I had less than a month to prepare for my big adventure now and yet I didn’t feel rushed or not ready. In fact, I had already come to know and love these people in Kentucky so much that I literally missed them and just wanted to go go go already.

One day later, on July 5, Andrea emailed me again, saying that she had talked to Susan about my flight schedule and arrival time. Things were getting serious AND I LIKED THE FEEL OF IT. Steve will be at work when you get here, Andrea said, and suddenly I felt sick to my stomach - barely, but it was there - because my host family, I finally realized, they had a real life to live. They went to work and I would arrive and suddenly be there and I myself would have to be the one to adjust. Also, Andrea wasn’t the family. Her husband and the kids and their friends and their extended family - I would have to get to know all of them and do my best to be liked.

While all this dawned on me, I kept on reading Andrea’s email. She said she was hoping to get started on my room, Steve and their friend Scott would start on making the headboard of my bed and the nightstand today. And I smiled, I couldn’t help it. This was new to me. Coming from a family of office workers, it never occured to me that someone could actually build nightstands themselves. My excitement, my love for this family all the way out in Kentucky grew and grew.

And so I was absolutely ready to leave and meet them and give them all I possibly had to give. I couldn’t believe my luck that it was this family out of thousands of host families that I’d end up with; that it had been EF and then the state of Kentucky, the right RC and the right IEC Susan and finally, the perfect host family. How easily could have one link in the chain been chosen otherwise and everything would have turned out differently?

I was happy and without a doubt that life, for once, would treat me kind. And that this would work out.

This had been a dream of mine for over five years and now, suddenly, I was counting down the last 24 hours.

To be continued…

It’s thundering outside but, most fascinatingly, it’s not raining but lightning with just seconds in between. It’s been going on for over an hour and I have never witnessed anything like that around here. I know these summer storms from Kentucky but we just don’t have ‘em here. Until now, apparently.

I could stand by the open window and look at the storm forever. It doesn’t get old, never ever will. I went downstairs to mention something about it to my parents and my dad started rambling about some guy on TV who is about to donate 100,000 euros for whichever good cause. It’s astounding, my dad said.

No, it’s not.

Dark, monstrous clouds, piling up, everywhere, lightning striking down, coming closer, in the distance, then closer, light and bright and then low-key, rain starting to fall from the sky, slowly, gently at first, then touching ground hard, the wind picks up, it rushes through the trees and the bushes, through the grass, through my hair, the thundering, the lightning, the unexpected, the unpredicted, so powerful and genius and beautiful - that is astounding. It’s fascinating, mesmerizing, and so perfect in sound, appearance and smell.

I could watch this for hours and hours while listening to country music, closing my eyes, taking it all in and wishing that I was in Kentucky right now, out in the country, where you can see lightning on the horizon, where there’s no walls and houses any direction you turn.

That’s where I belong. That’s where I can be happy. That’s where I want to sit out on the deck all night, in the summer rain, and feel the storm approaching, raging and blowing past. I know that’s what I need.

It’s who I am.

ETA: That’s what I’m talking about, man.