One of the first things they told us about at the orientation meeting was "inbound syndrome". Exchange students huddle together in their panic and don't experience anything. The essence of what they said was "don't make friends with the people with whom you will be spending every moment of your waking, and even sleeping, hours for the next two weeks". We failed.
The classes were extraordinarily long, but chock-full of good information. If you look at my notebook, however, you can see a steady trend downward, from the organized, labeled, and color-coded pages upon pages of notes of the first couple of days, to the couple of jotted down phrases and fantastic pieces of artwork drawn toward the end.
The activities were sort of a mixed bag. The highlights were:
- The "walk" that turned into a five mile hike- the second half running back frantically toward the school where we were staying through pelting rain and steadily nearing lightning and thunder.
- The castles. We visited two- the first was a generic, though fantastic, tourist trap. The second required a half-hour hike and was merely ruins, but was the better of the two. It was awesome to imagine it back in the day.
- The waterpark. Really, it was more of a spa-type place. We walked in and were greeted by gently steaming pools full of murky brown, mineral-filled water, which is supposedly extremely good for the skin. It must have been, because my sunburn went away after only a couple of days.
- One day, they brought about five horses to the school. A gaggle of young kids lead us around in circles, talking to eachother about how they didn't know how to say "the horse's name is Dusty". Somewhere along the way, one of them decided that I was competent enough to keep my seat myself. Which I could. Steering remains a problem, though.
I'll think of more eventually.
I had my first bout of homesickness while I was there. Coupled with being surrounded by people 24/7, I wandered off to a deserted corner of the school one night and sobbed for a good half hour. Tanner, I took the scarf you bought me and wrapped it around my shoulders and imagined that it was one of your famous violent, yet cuddly, hugs. It helped a little, but I miss you so much. Geez, I'm crying all over again. I miss you all so very much. Mom, thanks for the cards. They helped a lot. I don't know how I'll make it through a whole year. I have been listening to the Superchic[k] song "I belong to you" a lot. It pretty much sums me up at the moment.
One more language camp-related thought: lunch and dinner were virtually always some variation on pork and rice with all the rolls you could eat and/or sneak to your room and eat later with nutella. Good times.
I miss you.
