Pre Departure Orientation

The past two days I have been in Washington D.C for Pre Departure Orientation. Yesterday, we arrived at the hotel around 2:30 and I said goodbye to my family. It was really sad and there were a lot of tears and I will miss them so much! I  got all of my luggage to my room but it ended up that I had been given the wrong room key and was actually in a boy's room. So I had to move all of my luggage up to the second floor to my room. After that, all of us CBYX kids hung out in the lobby until the German kids arrived. Then we had dinner with them and it was really awesome to meet them all! They are all so nice and I'm super excited for them to spend the year in America! After dinner we had an orientation where we told the Germans about America and they told us about Germany. We also did a bunch of icebreaker games and I somehow ended up winning a rock, paper, scissors tournament out of all 100+ people. I'm still not sure how that happened.... After the meeting we went back to our rooms and got to know our German roommates. Mine's name is Elisabeth and she is really nice!

Today, we woke up early and had breakfast. Then we had another meeting where we talked about stereotypes and then broke into small groups and talked about our hopes and fears and just got to know each other. After that we left the hotel and went to a mall and had lunch. Then we all went to the State Department and listened to some speakers from the Cultural Affairs department and some of the people who run CBYX. After the State Department the Americans and the Germans split up and we went to the Holocaust museum and the Germans went to the White House and the Smithsonian. The Holocaust museum was really interesting but also really sad and sobering. After the museum, we went to Old Town Alexandria where we had dinner and then had free time. It was so fun and I got to know a lot of people! I think I will make some really good friends and I can't wait to be with them at language camp!

Here are some pictures from D.C. so far!

I have the pictures from the State Department on my phone and I haven't put them on my computer yet but I'll post them when I upload them to my computer! 

Tschüss,

Dani♡