Tony Hawk Is In My Room

Hallo aus Aachen! I’m currently chilling in my host family’s living room listening to my host father mow the lawn. I can tell this is going to be a great few months.

Hello, I'm from Oregon!

The flight here was okay. I sat between two Germans who were both from the outskirts of Frankfurt. One was a heavy-set, 45-year-old guy wearing a Members Only shirt. He gave me lots of advice about my whole adventure here. The two key themes were: 1.) I am young and my brain is a sponge. Therefore I should not be afraid to learn. Knowledge is a gift. 2.) Don’t do drugs. He told a little fable-like story for a while about curiosity and cats and somehow he worked in this movie he saw in middle school about LSD.

And on my other side was a 20-something-year-old woman who looked like your classic German Fraulein. She was very sweet and was returning home after a year as an au pair for a family on Long Island. In some ways she reminded me of many of my friends because she kept talking about how she really wants a puppy this year. 

Anyway I arrived in Frankfurt (The Members Only guy told me that Frankfurt was named by the Romans because “Franko Furt” means “strong fort.”) with about an hour of sleep due to my situation as a middle seat around seven in the morning. That didn’t really matter, though, because I was so psyched to meet my host family! 

Once we’d gotten our baggage, gone through customs, and all that, we were broken up into the three language camp groups. Depending on where you’re living this year you either went to Aachen, Dusseldorf, or Hamburg. 26 out of the 50 kids went to Aachen. After about a two hour train ride here, we stepped off onto the platform and were greeted by our host families. 

My host mother was there to pick me up. We drove around town a bit in her zippy little Saab and eventually arrived at home. Since my older host brother will be away at university this year, I’m staying in his room. Some of my favorite parts of my new room are: 1.) There’s a Tony Hawk poster right above my bed, so I get to fall asleep with Tony right there. 2.) The bed doesn’t have the same kind of sheets as we do, but rather one duvet taking care of everything. 3.) On the bookshelf there are some pretty intense Lego creations. The layer of dust gives away how long it’s been since they were played with, but they remind me of my own brothers.

By the time the Birdman was my age, he'd won over 70 skating contests.

After getting settled a bit, we went for a walk. There’s a jogging/biking/etc. path right nearby, which is convenient. Apparently if you go on it for 120 kilometers you’ll be in Luxembourg. Maybe we’ll go on little runs or bike ridesto Luxembourg once in a while. 

I read in the newspaper here that Belgium has awesome Pommes Frites (French fries).

My host father just finished mowing the lawn and cracked open his evening beer. It’s a late afternoon lull and we’re just kind of all chilling before dinner. At the moment I’m pretty exhausted. I’m forcing myself to stay awake until a reasonable bedtime in order to overcome jet lag. As for now, though, I’m alive and well and about to fall asleep.