sarah nguyen

Tomorrow I leave San Jose. There are many swirling teenage feelings in my mind I’m sure, but between fitting stuffed bears into my luggage and going through clothes that mysteriously smell like this person’s house or that exboyfriend, all I can think about at the moment is that I

Must. Fit. Nine. Pairs. of Shoes. Into luggage!!

More like eight, but this is frustrating anyway. ;D

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I’ve been terrible about posting. My host family has e-mailed me tons so that’s exciting, but for now I’ll just say that my parents booked airplane tickets to leave San Jose on Saturday, July 26, at 7:45 AM. We’ll spend about a week touring the East Coast and visiting family before my parents drop me off in D.C. on the 3rd of August.

Basically, Friday the 25th will be the last opportunity to say “Smell ya later” to me in person. The following is the rather adorable countdown I’ve created for all of you to easily reference. Fun!

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After school on Friday I checked the mail and found an unusually fat envelope from ASSE. The first line said:

Dear Sarah,

Wonderful news! Your ASSE German host family has been found!

A few pages later is my host family placement form, which is filled with pretty basic info (age, occupations, contact info, pets, and activities) about my new family, the Schmidbauers.

Both of my host parents, Thorsten and Heike, are relatively young, and they have a 13 year old daughter named Annika. I’ll get more into all the details later as they’ve already e-mailed me, so for now I’ll entertain you all with some pictures of Haan, the itty bitty town I’ll be living in next year.


stolen from oddtodd’s travelblog

I love the streets! And the buildings. They look so, well, German! Unlike Frankfurt and some other big cities I’m sure. The following is a side by side comparison of San Jose, CA (where I am now) and Haan, Germany (where I will be next year) from Google maps. If you enlarge them (click), you’ll see that Haan is MUCH greener and had much more open space than San Jose. I don’t know if that means it’s farming country or if there will be many fields to frolic in, but I’m fine with it either way.

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I just got a letter from ASSE with my flight information. We have to be at the airport in Washington, DC (Dulles) on Sunday, August 3 from 1-4 pm. The international flight is at 5:23 pm on August 6 and we arrive in Frankfurt, Germany at 7:10 am on August 7, their time. It’s a 7 hour and 47 minute flight, by United if the information on expedia.com is accurate at all…Interestingly enough, I can click to view the seat plan from expedia.com, and all the more upfront (though still economy) seats are filled. Exciting! We’re supposed to send in the details of how we’re going to get to DC to ASSE.

I’m super excited because I can finally plan my summer. My parents may decide to take a week long vacation on the east coast before August 3. That’s it. Sweet!

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Yesterday I received another package from ASSE, which was super exciting because it’s been more than a month since I got the acceptance letter. It’s filled with basic guides to being an exchange student (culture, school, your host family, and “It’s all up to you!”), a handy Celsius<->Fahrenheit guide, and some fun info about Germany and a rather dry overview of their history.

Also, to confuse my parents, they start the packet with the words, “Congratulations on your final acceptance as an ASSE exchange student…” Aha! You weren’t finally accepted before! You were only a finalist then! No one actually said that in my house, but I swear I could hear it from CBYX-er’s homes nationwide. I’m sure they’ll congratulate us again in the future, but no will will complain. We also get an official ASSE folder to hold all these information letters in one place, and I suppose it’s as nice as folders come.

Today marks the beginning of the end. There are only eight more weeks of school; one is full of STAR testing (to measure my school’s performance), and one is just graduation practice and having fun, so there are really only two more weeks of school. It’s frightening.

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Yesterday morning I went to the dentist for a regular checkup. Despite regular brushing & flossing, I apparently I have gingivitis Thanks to my dad, I have super weak gums, and the oral hygienist even looked at me suspiciously when I told her I floss everyday. Then she told me to be more aggressive when I floss. Or, to put it another way, to draw blood. And unfortunately, she’s right. >.<

Anyway, when Dr. Smith came in, I mentioned that I’d be gone for a year, which meant scheduling for pulling out my wisdom teeth (which haven’t shown up yet) would be kind of awkward. He decided to give me another x-ray of my teeth, and after showing that to the oral surgeon, said that since my roots haven’t grown yet, it might actually be easier to pull out my wisdom teeth this summer before I leave instead of waiting another year. My dad thinks our dentists are just trying to make more money, but that’s the way it goes. Yayy.

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On Tuesday the 18th, I received the official acceptance letter from ASSE. I think mine came a little late because they wrote a ‘1′ instead of a ‘4′ for my address (I got this fixed). The letter’s about three pages long. Summary of the more interesting parts:

• They’ll need to approve your final application before you’re officially accepted. My mom made me clarify this with Sandy Chase, my rep, and Sandy told me that she already received the list of those who had problems with their final application and I wasn’t on it, so I’m golden.
• The final application will be sent to Germany where it’ll be shown to prospective host families (eek!). After we know my host family, I’ll get a placement form/other docs that I’ll need to apply for my residence permit.
• ASSE will be sending a series of information letters at certain intervals to guide everyone through the process leading to departure. International flight details will be sent in May - I’ll know exactly what day I leave then o.o
• I’m responsible for the flight to Wash, D.C., but ASSE can help with the flight arrangements (student discount, perhaps?)
• Scholarship covers:

1. Program cost
2. Pre-Departure Orientation in Washington, D.C.
3. Round-trip international airfare
4. Three week Language & Cultural Enrichment (LCE) Program at the beginning of the exchange (We might have different host families during these three weeks than for the rest of the year)
5. Seminars in Weimar (mid-year) and Berlin (end of year)
6. Basic Health Insurance (what does basic mean?)

• The D.C. orientation starts sometime during the first week of August. Less than five months away!
• There might be extra trips available for a fee - I’m thinking places like Paris or Vienna. It could be compared to a trip to SoCal from San Jose. My mom says she’ll probably pay for me to go on a few of these if they’re reasonably priced, so I’m definitely looking forward to that.

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