First Post

As you can see, this is the first post of my soon-to-be exchange blog. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Deanna Morris, and I live in Maine. This year, starting Saturday, I'll be living in Germany with a host family! I've made the decision to (hopefully) discontinue, or at the very least cut down my use of facebook during my time abroad. After complaints from a certain person (and yes, I mean you, mom) that she wouldn't be able to follow my adventures, I decided to create a blog to document my experiences. It's going to be mainly a sort of diary for me to look back on when I come back, but also for those of you who care what I'm up to.

For those of you who aren't exactly sure of what I'm doing, I'll briefly outline the program that I have been accepted to. The Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange Program (CBYX) was established to promote the relations between the two countries. It is a full scholarship for either Germans to live in the U.S., or Americans to live in Germany for the academic year. CB in the northeast is administered by AFS. If you want to know more about the program, the link is at the bottom of the page.

To receive the scholarship, all I had to do was fill out a couple of applications and attend an interview. None of it was very hard, just time consuming, The hardest part of applying was waiting to hear back from AFS to see if I got the scholarship! I started the application process in October or November, and didn't hear back until April 7th, even though they said they would tell us in March... applying for colleges is going to be a breeze, now!

My family lives in Krauchenwies, a small town of about 5,000 people, fairly close to the Swiss/German border (southern Germany). It's about 25km from Lake Constance, and approximately and hour and a half from Stuttgart. My family consists of a mom, Corina, a dad, Michael, and three kids, Laura (15), Louisa (12), and Lorenz (7). Laura is going to spend the year in Portugal, so I unfortunately won't really get to know her. They are all really into sports, and go to a club/ski club in their town. Corina likes running, and they frequently go skiing in the winter. My school is really small, only 100 more kids than Maranacook has. I think this is going to be a perfect fit!

If you happen to still have any questions about this whole exchange, feel free to comment below!