Monat: Juli 2014

I promised to be back with this article and even though it took quiet a while now, it was worth the loooong wait!!!

On Tuesday, 22nd of July 2014 I finally received THE message!
It was one of these casual normal days were you don’t expect anything to happen. I was just getting ready to meet up with a very good friend to say goodbye for one long year since we won’t see each other before I am leaving.
It was 10:25 when I still had 5 minutes until I had to leave… well what to do, check Facebook… maybe I have new e-mail…
OMG… I DO!!!!!!!!! My mom was with me in the living room and she couldn’t hide her excitement neither: ‘Ahhhhh is it your placement mail??’ YES IT WAS!
I got my dad from his home office and the two were staring at me with curious eyes. I was so afraid to open the mail because I didn’t want to be disappointed. So eventually I opened the message: a long mail but the one thing I saw immediately in big black letters was:

MARYLHURST, OREGON

That’s what I was also reading out to my parents and I think we all were a bit relieved, Oregon! I was hoping for a placement on the west coast of the USA and that was definitely fulfilled!
First things first: Open Google Maps and type in for the very first time the place where I will be living for 1 year: Marylhurst, Oregon. Since the map was at first quiet zoomed in, we were zooming out and I quickly realized that there is a city around, a city!!! I won’t be in the middle of nowhere!! But which city???
It’s Portland!!! Wohooooo

Next up: put Marylhurst into Wikipedia.
It said that it is a unincorporated community in Clackamas County which is just a few miles south of the city center of Portland. So from what I understood, Marylhurst is just an area where the University, some art galleries and maybe some houses are located. (I am not too sure about that though… Once I am there I will figure it out and let you know!)

This leads me directly to my next exciting news: In this e-mail they announced my future host college where I will spend the first semester of my stay. It is Marylhurst University!!!
The university was established in 1893 by the Roman Catholic religious teaching congregation, The Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary.
Until today it is a private Catholic university with only almost 2,000 students. Although it is a Catholic university, religious observances are not required and there are many students with different beliefs at Marylhurst.
It is a liberal arts university which offers a lot of art, music, religious, science and business classes. Now it is my turn to get in touch with my College Coordinator to maybe already organize some things before I will arrive there.
I am very excited, happy and feel appreciate that I get the opportunity to study one semester at this well established university.

One thing is still missing though: I do have a university now but I still don’t have a host family or any other possibility to stay. They told me to be a little longer patient and they will be in touch with me as soon as they got more details about my hosts. This whole procedure is quiet rare since all the other participants first received their placement when college AND host family was all set. So yea I do know that I will study in Marylhurst, but I don’t know yet where I will live. This might be in another part of Portland or a place nearby.

I shared the exciting news with everyone who was interested and also with those who where not interested – they also had to listen! I was annoying everyone so much with my placement so I guss everyone is more than relieved that I finally stop talking about it constently. But then again: It just started now! Sorry!
I was looking up information about Portland, Oregon and the whole surrounding until it was late night.

So in a very quick review I would like to share what I found out about Portland and Oregon so far:

It rains! A lot! All the time! It won’t stop!

The city is green! They cycle! No where else in the USA more employees cylce to work than they do in Portland!

There are 60 microbreweries! They love to drink beer! 2010 it was named to be the best city for Happy Hour in the USA!

Food! There seems to be a lot of it! Different food: biological, vegetarian, vegan, international, Everything! Yummy!

The weather is comparable to Western Europe, just more rainfall! which means again: It rains! A LOT! 165 days per year!

I read about the unbelievable amount of rain so much that by now I do believe I need to buy myself rather a little boat than a car. It’s supposed to be quiet nice until October though. That gives me enough time to prepare myself: rain boots, rain coat, umbrella and a boat.

Anneke

P.S.

If there is anyone reading this who heard me talking about the Netherlands (where I lived last year) will notice that all this sounds  very familiar: rain, cycling, living green, drinking beer…
Yes, I have to agree, it seems to be the American version of Holland. If they now have excellent cheese like they do in the Netherlands I won’t complain!

Yep that’s basically what I am doing these days…
I still have no clue where in the United States I am going to live the next year! I am so so curious to find out and to finally start some more detailed planning.

People keep asking:
Where exactly in the USA will you stay???

I hate that I can’t answer this question… The first people from our program found out the last days and weeks which makes it even more exciting. These days you can find me in front of my laptop refreshing my e-mail inbox and hoping that some time soon a little 1 will appear in my mailbox. And no, I don’t mean a little 1 which indicates some junk mail – I hate these mails these days!!!
I want to receive a mail with ‘YOUR PLACEMENT’

So until then there is nothing else for me to do besides waiting, waiting, waiting… thinking about each of the 50 states… Will it be Ohio? Maybe Wyoming? Florida would be cool – or imagine Alaska. Many people were placed around Chicago maybe so will I?! Or maybe one of the New England States? East or West Coast or right in the middle?! Will I experience an icy cold winter or an extremely hot summer?!
Who knows – well I am sure my organization already has a clue, but they won’t tell me.
I will be back with a ‘MY PLACEMENT’ post…

Anneke

On June 20th it was time to complete another big step to get to the USA:
I had an appointment at the American embassy in Berlin to get my visa!

It took us quiet a while until we finally got an appointment but in the end me and 7 other
dear fellow CBYX participants were supposed to be at the embassy on June 20th at 8 o’clock.
Before this date I had to collect many papers and forms which were necessary to get the
visa. This took quiet a while, but oh well… it’s all worth it, right?

Since people aren’t allowed to take anything inside the embassy and they also don’t have
lockers, I decided to go by car, so everyone could store bags and backpacks in there.
We met at 7:30 and the queue was quiet short at that point (compared to what we saw 1 hour later!) We waited outside for about 10 minutes and then 5 of us were sent into a room to get through the security procedure. It felt like we are at an airport and we all made it through without any problems.
The embassy looks quiet fancy and impressive from the inside and we all felt a little bit nervous and under pressure. We received a guideline how to put all our documents in the right order and had to stand in another queue to register. Another 10 minutes later I handed in all my (very neat and accurate ordered) forms to a lovely lady and she checked it. Everything seemed to be correct and most of the actual necessary documents where all of a sudden not necessary anymore. Oh well. She asked me to sit down and wait until an officer calls my
name.
So the 8 of us where sitting there, chatting away and getting more nervous about this interview with an American officer. We didn’t have to wait too long. After 25 minutes I heard my name (pronounced quiet good, considering that an English speaking person said it). The
officer had my passport and all the documents in front of him and asked me 3 questions (in German):

Where in the USA will you be staying?
What will you be doing in the USA?
What do you study?

I answered these questions simply and quickly. He said: ‘Okay, thank you, your visa is approved we will send it to you via mail within the next week.’
I was quiet surprised how fast and easy it went. Also we were all a little bit disappointed that they didn’t want to see all our documents that we collect over the last weeks. But in the end we were more than happy that we all got our visa – one step closer to cross the American border and stay there legally for one year.

I am the only participant from Berlin, all the other guys travelled from the Bremen and
Hanover area to Berlin to get their visa. Since we haven’t seen each other since April, we
decided to spend the day together until they had to leave again.
Since we already left the embassy at around 8:45, we decided to get some breakfast. We went to Prenzlauer Berg where we found a very cute little café called ‘Café Stockholm’. It was located in a sou-terrain and therefore extra cosy. We had some delicious coffee, croissants and fruits in a lovely Swedish atmosphere.
Afterwards we went to Berlin’s Central Station. Next to it there is a great bar / restaurant
directly at the river Spree. To celebrate our visa the guys got some beer and the girls a
typical Berlin drink called ‘Berliner Weisse’ basically beer with colourful and sweet
flavouring.

My lovely group, celebrating our visa!

To finish our day off we had some dinner, of course some typical Berlin Currywurst. Then it was already time to say goodbye. It was lovely seeing them all and spending a lovely day together. It is always great hanging around with people who are going through the same with having the same expectations, worries and thoughts.
But one question was around the WHOLE time: WHERE IN THE USA WILL WE BE PLACED??? Only one of the 8 had an answer to this questions. The rest of us still has to be patient and wait, wait, wait !!!!

An American visa for 12 months and quality time with great people – what a successful and beautiful day it was.

Anneke