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. 

Thunder n' Lightning

Just some random Torey thoughts on a stormy night.

Faster and Faster and OHNO. WHAT ITS MAY.

Ohmygoodness. Where did the time go. It was October and then it was December and now its May.
Seriously.
I found myself laying in the middle of my back yard today thinking about now. Right now. I find myself so caught up in what has happened this year and what's going to happen when I get back that I have to stop myself every once in awhile, breathe, and think about now.
There is no such thing as tomorrow. There is only today. Today is the only day that you will ever live in.
So live it well!
This last weekend was another exciting one! I got to visit the Hamburg Hafengeburtstag festival, which is the birthday party for the Hamburg Harbor. It was super crowded, but really fun. You see all sorts of different types of people at such festivals in Hamburg, I love being in the mix. I also love schmalzkuchen and Russian sailors!

Woo! 
Und dann!! This last Sunday, I got a big surprise from my host dad, and got to fly in a small plane around Wedel!!! It was super fun and scary because the plane was a bit rickety, but I had an awesome time. I still love planes. They are so strange and cool. Seriously. 
Und dannnnnnnnn later that evening, I got to see the biggest cruise ship on Earth go by on the Elbe as it was leaving the Hafengeburtstag. Yep. The Queen Mary 2. 
It was gigantic. 

And awesome. 

I also got a special treat, and was asked to have my last blog post on the facebook page of ASSE, which was really cool!
I also love both my families a lot. I'm excited for these last few weeks and to be home. Its all quite emotional and troubling, but I feel so accomplished already. Explaining and describing my feelings is so hard to do. I just feel a lot of love for everyone and everything. That's basically all I can say!

I love the Kless's!