#66 What happened?? Second Suitcase, Finals & Michigan

Soo... Somebody tell me where did the time go? Like seriously, there has to be somebody who stole it from me because I honestly can't believe that I officially have less than a month left. LESS than a month. Wow. Let's not try to put my feelings into words cause I would fail anyways. Only exchange students know what I'm going through.
The worst part about only having a month left is that you try to do as much as you can in that short time period. That means you ALWAYS have something going on and you are completely booked out until the day you leave. And everybody knows, the busier you are, the faster time flies by.
Also, it sucks to have so much going on because all the graduation parties are going on and some of them fall on the same day and you have to choose.
So, I also have one happy thing to tell you about before I return to my sadness.
Last weekend we planned on going camping but the weather was miserable so I canceled and said we would go on a day trip to Michigan on Sunday instead. Well, I went to a graduation party on saturday and I was the only one from my family who went early to help set up and when they finally showed up too, they told me that we will leave that day!! So we had to go home, hurry up and leave.
YAY! I got to go o Michigan!! And the first thing my sister told me when we passed the state line: Look, trees!! :D haha. To clarify, there are not many trees in Indiana, just cornfields.
So we spent the night and the day with family and friends in Michigan until we returned home on Sunday. It was a good weekend and I had a good time!
Since I bought tons of stuff here in America, there was no way I would get away without buying a second suitcase. I'm happy I did that already because now I only have to stress out about how to fit all my things into two suitcases.
Since its the last week of school, we have finals. Wuhoo! But there is this really cool, new policy that lets you exempt finals in classes where you have an A or a B and perfect attendance. This only counts for classes that aren't math or english but since I have so many "fun" classes, I was able to exempt three! So I don't have to take finals in Business Law, Sociology or American Studies (In that class I was only able to exempt the history part, not the english part).
That also means that I only have three finals and today I had none so I'm in school doing nothing ^^.
Well, I watched a movie in the lecture room and then went to hang out with Cherry in VS :)
I lost my thought.. LESS THAN A MONTH GUY!

#65 Things I'll miss about America

Since I only have 31 days left, I thought it would be time to do this post.. Wow, I can't believe I already reached this point in my exchange year. There are still no words to describe the feelings going on inside of me right now. I hope you have fun reading these and maybe (if you are an exchange student) you can identify with some of them.

#1 Shopping on Sundays 
I think every exchange student in America knows what I'm talking about!!! Isn't it awesome if most stores are open on sundays? Right now I'm so used to go shopping with friends on a sunday and we all know it's not like this in Germany so I will really miss that option!

#2 Indiana Roads 
Yes, I will miss these endless seeming, straight roads that are bumpy and full of holes. I'll miss seeing cornfields, cornfields and more cornfields when I look out the window. Indiana roads is something only people who have been to Indiana understand. And I love them!

#3 High School 

I only have five days of High School left. And then I'll never return. Ever. Wow. That is what seniors have to deal with but at least they had 4 years of High School and most of them hate it anyways (they don't know how good they have it).. But yeah, even though my school here is, uhm.. let's say unique, I still love it! The friendly relations to the teachers or the easy classes, it's just so different than back in Germany! I will miss going on these (really, REALLY uncomfy) yellow school buses to go on field trips. I'll miss saying the pledge of allegiance before school starts and I'll miss having lunch that doesn't even suck that much. Who would have thought that I would ever say: I'll miss school?!

#4 Country Life 
When your house is in the middle of cornfields (not even kidding, cornfields on every side of your house!) and the next town is a five minute car ride away from you and all it has is a subway and a dollar general (but at least three churches) then you know you live in the country! Well, that probably doesn't count for everybody but that's how it is here. And I'll tell you, country life comes with its own side effects! For example are people showing up at your house randomly all the times. And I don't mean, they ring the bell (cause we don't even have one!) no they just enter because you don't lock your house anyways :D And you have at least one dog or one cat but mostly a bunch of each. Ever heard of 4-H? Of course, your children are part of it! You want milk for your cereal? Goat milk is available at all times... Want to hang out after church on sunday? Let's meet at your house and shoot some guns. That's how life works for most people here. Oh.. and if you ask: where do you go to school? You most likely get the answer: I'm home schooled!
That is how my life is here. That is what I love so much! The moment when all channels you get in the car are either country or christian music. The moment when you don't have to go to school because of fog. The moment you see road kills every two miles (ore more often). It's all part of it. Oh my, how I'll miss this!!

#5 Free Refills/Water 
One thing that I really appreciate about American Restaurants or Fast Food places is that they offer free refills for your pop and you get water for free! In Germany we have to pay for the water, which is really annoying. Here, I always get water with my meal cause its free and I'm not a big fan of pop.
Besides that, pop is so much cheaper here! I don't know if that's a good thing or not, cause people also drink much much more pop here than we do in Germany!

#6 Panda Express, Taco Bell & Co
There are millions of different fast food places here and I'll miss some of them! Like Panda Express, the best fake chinese food I ever had! Or Dairy Queen with the delicious blizzard ice cream, and Taco Bell with, well.. Tacos :D In my ten months here I got to try many of the fast food places and I wished I could take some of them back to Germany!!!

#7 Youth Group 
I definitely had the best friends times in Youth group. That is the church meeting for teens on wednesday. I found so many good friends there and every wednesday we have a blast!! I will miss that hang out time so much when I go back to Germany. Nobody understands how close you can grow to people in that one day a week. Also, the special thing is that everybody accepts you the way you are and you can be yourself!!!

#8 A house full of people
I lived in a house with 11 other people for then months. In 4 weeks I'll go back to living with 2 people and being alone a lot of times. It will be different and it  will be so weird! Giving up all my amazing siblings for being alone again is probably the hardest thing to do. You guys probably think: 11?! That's just crazy!! And yes, it is crazy, but in the best way! You always have something going on, somebody to talk to and people to help you.

That's all for now. I'll update it if something else comes to my mind. Until that, enjoy your time wherever you are!!

#64 Washington DC, Prom, Chicago...

Just to let you guys know, this trip was beyond amazing!!! I loved it so much and I'm sad that the time passed so fast.. I won't go too much into detail about what exactly we did but I will show you guys a bunch of pictures!! So if you ever have the chance to go on a senior trip with your High School, DO IT! It's worth the money even if it appears expensive at first. Actually, I don't have many pictures of the trip on my tablet yet so I'll just include some pictures of Prom too... YES! Prom already happened!!!

Prom was awesome! But I do have to say that I have the opinion that people make too big of a deal out if it... Some girls spend $700 on their dresses!!! Not even kidding! They also spend $60 on their nails and an extra $100 on their hair. Not to mention that we still had to pay $30 for a Prom ticket (if you didn't have a date). Ohh.. And don't forget about shoes!!
Thankfully I have awesome sisters who did my hair and nails so I didn't have to pay any for that. I also was lucky enough to find a dress for 60 bucks! :)
Prom itself was fun with all my friends but all it was was basically just dancing in a fancy building. Don't get me wrong, I loved it! I just think its too much of a thing here in America and I wouldn't spent a fortune on it. But now, enjoy some pictures!!

I made my corsage by myself (no date problem) and Cherry did too.
She actually made hers out of paper!

In the end, Cherry was my prom date.. I asked her on the day of Prom :D But that's a
long story.....

The monday after Prom was Senior skip day.. Yap that's actually a thing in the USA and its basically just a day where the seniors skip school. So of course Cherry and I took the chance and didn't go to school.. Better yet, we used the extra time to go on a road trip to CHICAGO! Together with two of our sisters, the boyfriend of one and 3 other exchange students from Italy and China, we left on monday morning in a van. Only that the van broke down in the middle of a highway somewhere in nowhere... So we spent some time with small town people (including 2 cops) in a tow office. It was like in the movies! Small town talk!! We actually made it to Chicago in a 2 hours delay and had an awesome day with speed sightseeing. Ever heard of Garret's Popcorn? If you get the chance to go to Chicago, try it!!!! Pictures will follow later :)) I also had the chance to go to Chipotle for the first time and goodness, its sooo good!!! One advise, if you don't like spicy, don't order the chicken.. Cherry, who hates anything spicy, was disappointed to find her meal that didn't contain any sauces to prevent it from being hot, spicy.. "It's a trap" she said :D