PreDeparture

Just about 15 hours left until I leave and I still haven't done anything related to packing except for laying a few articles of clothing out on my bed. Perhaps to hide the fact of it being real, because it hasn't hit me at all yet.  Hopefully it will just be an easy transition and excitement will outweigh anything else. I am certainly as ready as I will ever be, especially after about four months of preparation. This last semester felt like I had an extra class with everything that went into setting this up. Endless forms, deadlines, and readings between PennState and IES, which is the organization that is running my program.  I guess now would be a good time to bring anyone who doesn't know up to speed with what i'll be doing.  

I will be living and studying in Freiburg im Breisgau, which is down in southwest tip of Germany. It is settled in the Black Forest and just about an hour from Switzerland and France. I am in a European Union program, so all my classes and travels will relate to the EU. The program is made up of only 50 students, who are mostly from U.S universities. The program is affiliated with Freiburg University, I will live in an university apartment which will be, Myself with my own room and I will share a floor with 7 other German students and we will all be sharing a kitchen. I don't know any of my flat-mates, nor really any of the 50 kids in my program either. I have only talked with two so far, Lindsey from Hawaii, and Viktor who is from Hungry. They both seem cool and it seems like we should get along well. 

Anyway my classes will be separate from the Germans and I will only be taking classes with the 50 students from my program. I don't finalize my classes till I get there..But so far I have, a German Language class, EU-US relations, EU Foreign Policy Analysis, an EU environmental one and then the EU integrative studies which everyone must take and it gears us to all our travels. It is different then any normal program because we will be traveling for 30+ days around Europe. Its about each month that we have a big trip, usually around 8days total. During these travels we will be visiting different European Union institutions, like EU parliment, world bank, the UN etc. Will be meeting with delegates and have to wear a suit and the whole nine yards on those trips. Plus a whole bunch of day trips. All together I should end up being in about 15 countries. 

I don't check into my apartment until the 30th of August, So I am leaving tomorrow with my family and we are going to travel around Europe before I start. We leave tomorrow at about 11am to take a limo down to the philly airport and our flight is at around 4pm. I really hope I can sleep on the plane because we are going to get to our layover spot in Frankfurt, Germany at about 12:30am est but it will be 6:30am over there because they are 6 hours ahead over there. Then we have two hours wait in frankfurt and then fly out to Zurich, Switzerland so I should finally arrive there at 4am est or 10am their time. Will we be doing days trips from Zurich until monday then will go to Munich, Germany where we will do more day trips and into Austria and will stay in munich until the next saturday the 27th when we will head to my city, Freiburg, hangout a bit there, then my family will go home and I will start! But I will get into more of these travels when I get there.

So for now I am getting back to packing..aka going to the bars to meet up with friends for a last yeungling! haha. I only have my carryon backpack to still pack with my personals and electronics, so i'm all good. My posts to come so be more lively and with pictures, this one was just to get everyone up to speed'  

I hope you'll follow me on my travels! and please comment

Stay classy America. Next time you hear from me i'll be on the other side of the pond.

Josh'