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I moved on to the third family on Tuesday. I got to the train station at 1:25, just as my first train was supposed to be leaving, but it was eight minutes late so I got on in time. I had enough time between trains to still make the connection, so I figured all was well and got off at Nürnberg feeling pretty good.
The cosmos having the shitty humor that it does, my next train was forty minutes late and at a completely different gate. I was still feeling okay, since I was supposed to have an hour between trains at the next station (which I was going to use as a dinner break, but who needs to eat?), and that would give me about twenty minutes to make the next train. And even better, it pulled into the gate in half the time, so naturally I assumed I’d be able to make the next train.
Then the train was delayed and sat in the station because of technical repairs for about fifteen minutes, and about a mile outside the station we stopped and waited again for no particular reason whatsoever.
By the time the train pulled into Leipzig, we were just in time to see the train I was supposed to be on pull out of the station. I had to ask for a new connection, run to make the next train, and was so stressed that of course I didn’t stop to think of calling the family to let them know I would be late. I was supposed to be in Bernburg at 8:00 – I didn’t get there until 9:00, and of course the station was dark and deserted. That’s about when I started crying (but it was mostly some sniffling and whimpering while I dug around for the family’s phone number, at least, and not outright sobbing). I finally got picked up at 9:30, at some dinner, and then we went to go visit another family to go celebrate Emily’s birthday (she’s another IFYE person). There was booze and talk of politics where I pretty much nodded and pretended I knew what people were talking about. Also, I learned to do that thing where you run your finger around the edge of a wine glass and make that pretty ringing sound. That was really cool.
Yesterday I got to help a little bit with their potato harvest. We stood on the back of the harvester Then we went to the grocery store and I got a pretty umbrella. And today I’m finally going to the dentist because of the fact that it really hurts when I chew on the left side of my mouth. Yay dental care!
I like these people already. There’s four girls and one boy, and the oldest is sixteen and really fun to talk to. The mom speaks really good English (especially for someone who’s only studied it in school and never been to the US or the UK for more than a couple weeks), the oldest daughter likes Die Ärzte and Rammstein and is going to let me steal her music (and also speaks great English, so yay!), and they’ve got the first four Harry Potter books in English, so I can reread them like I’ve been wanting to and not be incredibly bored! The only fault I can find so far is that the two oldest daughters like Twilight, but that topic’s avoidable so I’m not too worried about it.
I need to start making plans for my free time, so I’ll have to email Frau Ross about her sister and talk to a couple other people. If I don’t have enough money, I might be cutting it short and going to the fourth family a few days early. Fun times!
The cosmos having the shitty humor that it does, my next train was forty minutes late and at a completely different gate. I was still feeling okay, since I was supposed to have an hour between trains at the next station (which I was going to use as a dinner break, but who needs to eat?), and that would give me about twenty minutes to make the next train. And even better, it pulled into the gate in half the time, so naturally I assumed I’d be able to make the next train.
Then the train was delayed and sat in the station because of technical repairs for about fifteen minutes, and about a mile outside the station we stopped and waited again for no particular reason whatsoever.
By the time the train pulled into Leipzig, we were just in time to see the train I was supposed to be on pull out of the station. I had to ask for a new connection, run to make the next train, and was so stressed that of course I didn’t stop to think of calling the family to let them know I would be late. I was supposed to be in Bernburg at 8:00 – I didn’t get there until 9:00, and of course the station was dark and deserted. That’s about when I started crying (but it was mostly some sniffling and whimpering while I dug around for the family’s phone number, at least, and not outright sobbing). I finally got picked up at 9:30, at some dinner, and then we went to go visit another family to go celebrate Emily’s birthday (she’s another IFYE person). There was booze and talk of politics where I pretty much nodded and pretended I knew what people were talking about. Also, I learned to do that thing where you run your finger around the edge of a wine glass and make that pretty ringing sound. That was really cool.
Yesterday I got to help a little bit with their potato harvest. We stood on the back of the harvester Then we went to the grocery store and I got a pretty umbrella. And today I’m finally going to the dentist because of the fact that it really hurts when I chew on the left side of my mouth. Yay dental care!
I like these people already. There’s four girls and one boy, and the oldest is sixteen and really fun to talk to. The mom speaks really good English (especially for someone who’s only studied it in school and never been to the US or the UK for more than a couple weeks), the oldest daughter likes Die Ärzte and Rammstein and is going to let me steal her music (and also speaks great English, so yay!), and they’ve got the first four Harry Potter books in English, so I can reread them like I’ve been wanting to and not be incredibly bored! The only fault I can find so far is that the two oldest daughters like Twilight, but that topic’s avoidable so I’m not too worried about it.
I need to start making plans for my free time, so I’ll have to email Frau Ross about her sister and talk to a couple other people. If I don’t have enough money, I might be cutting it short and going to the fourth family a few days early. Fun times!