Vor 15 Jahren...

 ...na???

So, long time no anything, and I am certain no one is reading this. If you are reading this, however, I imagine that you've already been told what the plan is. If not, here it is: I have always wanted to do a live-stream walk down memory lane, so here we are. Fifteen years ago this week, I landed in Germany for the first time ever. It seems like so long ago and just yesterday, all at once. While in Lueneburg, I wrote home about once a week, so those emails will be the bulk of the revival of this blog (for this semester, at least...or, let's be realistic, maybe only until the end of January). I am going to post the emails as their own posts, as near to their original date, unedited for content, and, just maybe, I will add commentary in a post-script of sorts. Further, I am going to try not to care (too much) that the formatting doesn't work or match previous (or even subsequent) posts. The first of the emails were from 6. January and 7. January, respectively, so I am posting them on 8. & 9. January (2021), and the one from 9. January will post on 10. January (2021), and then I think we'll be caught up. 

(Editor's note: apparently I've missed three emails, so the originals are actually from Christmas '05 (we'll see if I can find that one) and 2. January...whoops)

A bit of background...

I chose USAC for its convenience and ability to stick to an American academic calendar because I didn't think that I had time to use a whole year for this endeavor. I also put off studying abroad because I was only majoring in German because the coursework seemed interesting, not because I had a big drive to be in Germany (or so I thought). Up to the point where I landed in Germany, the farthest north I had ever lived was College Station, Texas, and the longest I had been outside of Texas at any length of time was two weeks. To say that I was underprepared for what awaited me on this ~five month journey is an understatement. I would be informed by my German friends that that winter was one of the coldest they'd experienced in years--a fact that I didn't really relish. 

The only real foresight I'd had about Germany before I left was, when I was at my going away party at the Kimballs', I commented to a friend that I wasn't sure I was ready to never feel at home again. How much truer those words, haphazardly spoken, were than I could have realized at their utterance. 

While gone, I missed weddings, planning of weddings, births, and many other life events, but I was exactly where I needed to be at the time (especially if I wanted to graduate, hah). 

I plan for the blog posts to carry the title that was in the original subject line of the email, which isn't totally different than the way that the posts on this blog are intended to be--consistency FTW (for more information on that, go to the archive and read the very first entry on "how this blog is going to work").

I hope you enjoy this, if you're reading...it was an extraordinarily formative time. 

GLG,

~deine sarah