Berlin, the most amazing 44 kids I've ever known, being on American Soil, and everything in between!!

Berlin was amazing. Simply put, I had one of the most amazing weeks with my ASSE group ever. They are such an amazing group of kids and I will never forget any of them.

Berlin is the end mark. Technically, I'm done with the CBYX PPP scholarship now. I completed it.

Ta Da!! I'm really proud of myself.
Okay so I have to start with the beginning I guess.

We'll talk about WEDNESDAY! MITTWOCH!
I took a train to Berlin and ended up in the Hauptbahnhoff there with a map and a vague idea of where my hostel was thanks to google maps the night before. Thankfully, I ran into other ASSE kids and we managed to get through the Central Station and make a seemingly long journey to our hostel.
By the way. It was gorgeous there.
And amazing.
So here we start my journey.

 This is the Hamburg Central Station. I love this station and this was right before I got onto my train to Berlin.

 And here we go! Here is the hostel we were staying at. If you look at the windows up in the right corner, mine was the furthest to the left :D It was a gorgeous building and I loved it here quite a lot. The grounds were absolutely amazing and green.

 Chels!!

 The hostel was also right next to a pond :)

 And now for some random group pictures. I love these guys so much. Ben is from Washington, there's James, my Boise buddy, and the curly haired kid is one of my absolute favorites, Matt from Alaska.

 And Dina :D

 The first day, we just hung out for a bit and talked about the next few days, and were able to go and do what we want with the afternoon. This is a picture from our room.

 And the last Idaho picture until we get back to the states!
WAY TO GO I DA HOOOOO
(I never had Idaho pride until I actually left and there were like twenty kids from California and only three of us Idaho kids)

 These two girls have gotten me through my year! Lili and Chelsea have always been there for me! Lili is from Washington and lives here in Hamburg as well.

 And here are my room mates!

 Matt and Dina <3
And now onto THURSDAY! DONNERSTAG.
On this day, we had a presentations, and then also had the whole day to ourselves, so we ventured into Berlin1

 Before we left!

 The street signs are so dang cute.

 SOMEONE TOLD ME THIS WAS THE FASTEST CAR ON EARTH.

The Brandenburg Tor!

 Yay! :D

Here's a quick video at the Gate!

 Holocaust memorial

AND NOW FRIDAY. THE BIGGEST DAY OF THEM ALL. FREITAG.

 We were at the Reichstag Building! This is where everything goes down! This is basically the White House, just super awesome German style, which is better.

 This was at the point that all of CBYX kids showed up at the Bundestag. I believe there were about 300 of us, I'm not quite sure, but it was a lot.

Proof.

And then we got to sit in on a session at the German Bundestag. It was super cool because they were discussing homosexual marriage and the debate got really heated.

Looks like Star Trek.

Then we all gathered here for some presentations and questions with some of the Representitives and the American Ambassador for Germany.

And then we hung out! It was super cool to meet all of the other CBYX kids, I had no idea there were so many of us!

Bailey!

Random group photos. I love all of these guys so much, they've become some of my best friends!

Wolfgang is one of the ASSE GIVE directors and he was basically the coolest person on earth and told me that he'd never forget me and that I'm really cool and yeah, I feel blessed :D

Okay, so Chelsea and I met one other guy from Idaho, and his name was Cameron and it was super cool to meet someone else from my home.

Then we walked to the American Embassy, which is right next to the gate.

Tallest and shortest of our group!

Here was super awesome. We got to be on American soil, drink American soda pops, and be with other Americans. It was super cool until half an hour in when we all had stomach aches from the pop and realized that we were going back to America in two weeks.

But still a really good time :D

Ben!

And the rest of Friday!

We went out and got some Italian food, twas tasty :D

And I got a Berlin beer, which was also tasty in a strange tasty way.

And last but not least, the ride back home on Friday night. It was an amazing few days and I love all of my friends so much. I feel so accomplished, and I feel so strange knowing that I have to go home in 11 days. 

I got my end of the year completion certificate, which is really amazing and bitter sweet. 

Thanks to everyone, and I'm looking forward to being home...

But not to leaving :/

Bikeride!

By the end of this year, I've finally learned to accept that life can be ridden on a bicycle. I hated the idea at first, mostly because everything is too far away to bike to in Boise unless you conveniently live downtown, so I rarely ever used it as transportation.

Here its a bit different. 

And my days most always start with the usual route with my dog, Arthos.
I was thinking the other day that I would probably end up missing this route a lot, because its quite gorgeous no matter the weather, so today I took my camera with my and dangerously documented this route for your enjoyment and my personal needs that will probably sink in two months after I get back to Boise.
Here ya are!

 That wasn't the best place for my face. But hey. Ohwell. Cool beans.

Yeah! I love Arthos and I love our morning bike rides! :)

How C.S. Lewis foretold my entire life...

I don't know how many of you have read or seen Prince Caspian, the second movie (third book) to the Chronicles of Narnia series, but I watched it this evening with my daddyman and toddy mcmudock (my host brother and host dad). I've seen this movie many times, but this time was different. This time, cuddled up with my boys, hanging on to every last word and action in the movie, I saw something entirely different in the end of the film.

First off, here's a quick picture to refresh or at least put a picture in everyone's head.

Now listen to the song that starts to play.
Check that out on youtube here please. Keep reading and listening bitte.

Peter tells his siblings that their time is up and its time for them to go home. Him and Susan learned everything they could in Narnia, and now was the time to finally begin a real life in the real world.
You can see through the two movies how Peter and his siblings all change and they desperately want to stay in Narnia because its their home...

I wish I could stay in Germany right now. Its my home, its what I'm so very comfortable with now. My life in Boise seems so far away...so different...
But I've learned a lot here. More about myself, about family, and about loving...
I'm going to miss it here dearly...and I'm going to miss my family a lot.
And maybe I'm Queen Torey the Sensitive in Germany.
And at home I'm just a 18 year old girl who doesn't know what comes next.
But thats okay.
And this is how it is.

"I'll come back when you call me"
No need to say goodbye"

I'm ready for my life in Boise.
I may show up in the Boise airport, sword in hand, and shout "FOR ASLANNNN"
And then get in trouble with security.
But that's okay.
Its the way it shall be.
I had a gorgeous weekend. I'm looking towards a gorgeous week in Berlin.

 My Linda <3

 <3 <3 <3

I feel like I've stepped into another world. And when I get back to Boise, no one will believe me that its a real place, and I won't get back the same way I first got here.

C.S. Lewis wove a beautiful story that I feel much too connected to to even be true.

I love everyone.

The end of all ends....

Howdy ho!
With 22 days left and May gone before I could spell it, I still find myself in this strange "I don't know how to feel at all" mood where I'm a big mixture of sad, accomplished, happy, excited, really sad, and a lot of sad.
The days are ticking by and I feel like I'm watching everything get sucked into a whirlpool as my flight date gets closer and closer.

I wanted to do a quick update before I head off to Berlin. Next Wednesday, I'll be in Berlin to meet up with the 250 of us CBYX kids for the end meeting. I'm nervous and excited, and stoked about seeing Berlin. It'll be nice to see all of my exchange buddies, and I promise to take lots of pictures :)

In fact, I've challenged myself that for every day of June leading up to my departure, I'm going to take five pictures of things that I will miss/love and upload them here. I'll end up with 100 or so pictures, which should be quite enough to satisfy and inform you all, and keep good memories for myself.

If you want to know anything that's far into the future, I recently re-enrolled into Boise High School and will be graduating with the class of 2014. Today is the day that my class graduates, and I'm proud of them all! I'm not too jealous though, giving up a year of school for a year in Germany wasn't that hard of a decision ;)

I love everyone and I'm getting ants in my pants thinking about June 20th.

Tag, an dem ich meine Hause verlassen.
And the day that I will return home.

And last but not least, we had a fancy photo session together as a family, and I just wanted to share a few photos from that because they're so gorgeous! Thank you Kless's!!

Windy Rainy Days

Its getting cold again. These last two weeks have been those beautiful spring weeks where every tree blooms and people are on the beach and on their bikes and you question if winter was actually even real or not. 

And then it starts raining again. 

And then you realize that Germany is 30 days from being over. 

Or at least my Germany is. 

My dream like year is coming to an end no matter how hard I fight against it. 

Today I went on a run with my puppy dog, Arthos Barthos (I'm putting a picture here because why not I love this dog he's the best dog on earth)

This was in January, don't think that its snowing again. Seriously. If you have those thoughts, the snow will come back. 

Anyways, we were running and part of the track that I like to take goes through a tree nursery and is next to a meadow and today it was so windy that all the trees and bushes looked as if they were going to be rooted up and I stopped and let everything around me move and stayed still for a few minutes. 

Life will never stop moving. Not for you, not for me, not for the good times or the bad times. 

My life has moved this past year, more so than it every has. I thought I was pretty cool when I came to Germany, I thought I knew what was what. 

But I had no clue. 

And while I'm scared to go home, I'm ready for the challenge. I'm ready for my family, for Boise High, for the foothills, for my Nicko and for every part of it. 

But on the flippy side, I'm not ready to leave Germany. Not ready to leave my Barthos, or my Tommy man, or my parents...

Not ready to leave spending rainy mornings with Linda, drinking coffee and cuddling up. 

Not ready to leave the Elbe, or Hamburg, or anything. 

And unfortunately, I'll never be ready. 

I don't want to leave, I don't want to go home, but I want to go home.