From Hello to Goodbye

Wow, what an emotional roller coaster of a day Saturday the 30th was for me! It started while my entire family was still fast asleep and began to get ready for the day. I looked in the mirror and decided I was very unhappy with my bangs. In an effort to fix this tragedy, I pulled out a pair of good old paper scissors and snipped away....creating an entirely new catastrophe. Just to set things straight--I am not one to be this irrational and am still fully convinced I wasn't completely awake at the time I committed the crime on my bangs.

Well, you don't want an entire blog entree on my bangs so I'll sum things up by saying my mom awoke to me in tears in the kitchen (fully awake) and trying to find a solution to my problem. But like she always does, mom came through and did a quick fix on my bangs--and they actually turned out really cute! yay!

Don't worry though, it takes more than a hair crisis to send my day off on an emotional roller coaster. ;-) At about 8:30am, I pulled out of my driveway with my family for the last time this year.The fact that I was leaving still hadn't set in though. Eight hours later, we stood at the Portland airport for an exciting reunion with Caleb who spent the summer in Russia. This was a high point on the roller coaster and seeing him again helped me forget my butterflies

Then I had my last dinner with my family...very bittersweet. My butterflies and I weren't very hungry, although my salad was delicious, but I made myself force down the nutrition. A few games of Apples to Apples followed at the hotel along with stories and pictures from Caleb's amazing trip and before I knew it I was back at Portland Airport.

At 11:45pm, tears streamed down my cheeks as I bid my family one final farewell--actually, it was only a "see you later", but it felt more permanent than that. Once through security, with a final blown kiss and wave goodbye, I continued on to my gate and realized that the months of waiting were over and my adventure had begun.

Once I began to get over the pain of the goodbyes, reality set it and with an excitement stronger than any I've felt yet and it was only multiplied by traveling with two other German bound teens. The three of us reached DC safely and are now enjoying our few days of orientation and preparing for our language camp and families in Germany.

Once again, I'm at the top of the roller coaster!