If you're one of the people who always messages me just to say that you cannot wait to read a new blog post, then you're in luck - this week you get two! This past weekend was the CBYX Mid-Year Seminar, meaning all of us CBYX exchange students from the southeast USA (the same people who I went to Language Camp in the castle with back in August) left our host families for four days of crazy fun together in a youth hostel.
I left on Thursday morning and met up with my exchange student friend, Kali, at Berlin's main eastern train station. We then rode the ICE (inter-city-express) together -- of course annoying half of the people in our compartment as we tried to find seats. The trip was in total over six hours, but fortunately it was not at all boring, as at each stop more of our exchange student friends would pile onto the train (making for some very loud and fun conversations both in German and English, probably further annoying the other passengers). By the time we had arrived in Ahrweiler, a tiny village outside of Bonn, we were slightly exhausted, but the excitement had really only just begun.
It's hard for me to describe exactly how incredible it was to be reunited with this group. Six months ago we were all complete strangers, yet now the the fifty of us (well, actually, we're down to forty-six) act as if we are one huge family. Everyone was of course so excited to see each other, so the first few hours as people arrived from the train station were full of hugs and simply the joy of being reunited. But it was hard to know what to say - so so so much has happened since we last saw each other in August, that no one even knew where to begin!
Once everyone had arrived at the youth hostel, we took our bags to our rooms (I was together with Emma, who I had roomed with at Language Camp, and two other really close friends - Maygen and Charlotte) and unpacked a little bit before eating dinner. Then afterwards, it was time for "Plenum", which was the same as what we did at Language Camp, when all of us meet together in a big room to do some sort of activity or lesson led by the Teamers (our CBYX "camp counselors"). It was so great to see our Teamers again, plus the ever wonderful Julia Littlefield (head of the southeastern CBYX division).
The rest of the weekend was pretty discussion based. We talked about our experiences, our highs and our lows, our daily struggles, the funny things our host families do, the language barrier, what we have learned, and what we still want to learn. It was definitely crazy to see how much everyone had changed - as a program alumna, Katy, perfectly explained on her blog, "Everyone [at the mid-year seminar] was so much more mature. When you face problems alone, you grow up so quickly. Here's the thing about exchange: it is, without a doubt, the best year of your life. It's also, however, the worst. I can honestly say I've never been happier in my life than I have been in the past six months. Yet when I was homesick, I thought I was insane for ever wanting to leave home. But I faced it, and in the process I became a very different person. This was the kind of thing we talked about; reflecting on what had happened and talking about what was left to come."
Much of this reflection throughout the weekend was done in our Small-Groups (teams of nine students, which were established in August). The nice thing about talking in our small groups was that each person was really able to share the more personal things from their experience without fear of being judged, because "what happens in the small group, stays in the small group." My group was led by Sarah, one of my favorite Teamers from Language Camp, and it was so nice to be able to get advice from her on all sorts of things and remember the good times we had in the Wittgenstein Castle.
On Saturday, the forty-six of us traveled to Bonn, the former capital city of Germany. We spent the entire afternoon in the Haus der Geschichte (House of History), a huge museum of German history. As a history lover myself, I was pretty engrossed in the tour, and it was especially exciting because the tour guide only spoke German and I actually understood most of what was going on. We learned many cool new facts and saw a lot of great exhibits (including an original Volkswagen bus!), and then afterwards we had free time to explore the city. Three of my best CBYX friends (Lyndee, Kaitlyn, Sarah) and I all really wanted hamburgers for dinner, so we found an authentic pub which included them on the menu. It wasn't that hamburgers are our absolute favorite foods, but it just felt like a special thing to do with fellow Americans (and I hadn't had one in six months). After we were done eating, the four of us stayed at the table for awhile, because there was just so much we had to catch up on, and then we went out onto the streets of Bonn.
On our walk, we were very excited to coincidentally stumble upon an American food shop, where they offered everything from Aunt Jemima syrup to Poptarts to Betty Crocker brownie mix. After stocking up on all sorts of snacks and getting some pretty great pictures which really show our enthusiasm, the four of us went to Starbucks (a rare treat for the people not living in big cities), and then looked in some shops and took goofy pictures before meeting up with everyone else to take the train back to the hostel and going to bed. (Or, actually, pretend to go to bed but actually stay up talking into the early hours of the morning).
On Saturday afternoon we all went for a walk through Ahrweiler, which was especially beautiful because it had just snowed. This, however, led to a HUGE snowball fight, which I would have gladly participated in if I did not have a terrible cold (but it was still fun just getting to be a spectator). After our walk and dinner, we played a German trivia game, with fifty clues hidden all throughout the hostel. (I'm pretty sure the other guests were not entirely thrilled that there were so many American teenagers laughing and screaming and running through the halls for two hours). By the time we were done, it was already pretty late, but as it was our last night we naturally all wanted to stay up and spend as much time with each other as we possibly could. I can't even remember what time I went to bed (sometime around three in the morning maybe?) - it was definitely the most fun night of the weekend.
Then, on Sunday morning, after breakfast / more small group time / lunch, it was time to say goodbye. I wasn't feeling overwhelmingly sad about leaving, or at least not until some fellow hostel guests (a traveling choir of middle aged men and women) invited us to watch their performance in the lobby. And of course, the song they chose to start with was "Seasons of Love" (from the musical Rent) - one of the ONLY songs I have heard in my ENTIRE life that can really make the tears start up.
And the best/worst part was how perfectly the lyrics fit to our situation in that moment. The beginning of the song goes, "Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes, five hundred twenty five thousand moments, oh dear, five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes, how do you measure, measure a year? In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, or cups of coffee? In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife? In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes, how do you measure, a year in the life?"
As they sang, my eyes started "sweating" quite a lot (a euphemism often used by my exchange student friends and I). I started thinking about my five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes (the six months behind me and the six months still ahead of me), and how much has happened so far, and I thought back to a poster that hung on the wall at CBYX Language Camp, which said "16+1 ≠ 17."
Although I looked at the poster multiple times everyday for those three weeks, I never understood what it meant. Of course sixteen plus one IS seventeen - that's simple math! But then one day someone gave me a clue: most of us exchange students come to Germany when we're sixteen, and then leave when we're seventeen. Suddenly the meaning of the poster clicked in my head: for us, the year in between sixteen and seventeen is not just a year. The amount of experiences we have, people we meet, new things we try, joy we feel, difficulties we face, adventures we go on, relationships we create, wisdom we gain...they all make it so much more than a year. A year as an exchange student is not something that cannot simply be measured with a number.
After this song (plus two more, involving dance routines...) were over, we applauded the choir, gave our final tearful hugs to one another, and took off for the train station, everyone heading their separate ways. The train ride home with Kali was definitely quiet - partially because we were both incredibly tired, but also because we could not believe we wouldn't be seeing our forty six "brothers and sisters" together again until June, just before we all fly home together (the thought of which never fails to cause a little more eye sweating...).