Is This Burning?

You know it will be a good day when the very first song that you hear on the radio is the Bangles' "Eternal Flame." Of course it remained an earworm for the rest of the day, but that is not a bad thing. For reasons that I will never know, I woke up singing the Proclaimers' "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" this morning. In an odd bookend phenomenom, that was precisely the song playing as I got out of Verena's dad's car tonight coming home from dancing (details down below).

I have written an optimistic paper about economic growth and environmental degredation.

The German election process, or at least the media covering it, is very confusing. I thought the parliamentary system made sense, but that was a lie. Nobody knows which party is actually going to control the country for the next few years, and it is 7 in the evening on election day (meaning the polls have been closed for an hour). There are pie charts and percentages and if I understand right the CDU has the highest percentage but then, based on the coalitions the news is showing, the SPD ends up with more by combining with either the FDP or the Left and Green parties, meaning that Schröder would remain Chancellor. . . CNN tells me that if Merkel becomes Chancellor, she has to form a coalition with Schröder's SPD, and that has me beyond confused. Two party systems are so much easier to understand.

It seems that there is a random festival every weekend- there was some church festival thing in Uckendorf today which mainly means that everyone from Uckendorf goes and hangs out in the square by the church and drinks beer and eats sausage and sort of discusses the election, but not really (whoever said that Germans like to talk politics apparently met other Germans than the ones I know). I also got a tour of Uckendorf's Catholic Church, which is tiny but has some old statues and pretty cool stained glass windows.

I went dancing tonight. It was amazing- boys and girls and music and ballroom dancing and so much fun! Nothing like this would happen in America- teenagers, including boys (not quite 50-50 but pretty close) totally willingly doing the jive and cha-cha and foxtrot and rumba and there were some people who were really really good and I was stunned. I can manage the cha-cha pretty well and Katrin taught me the rumba tonight (which is nearly exactly like the cha-cha anyway) and there were people there I didn't expect to see- this really nice guy from my Italian class, Tim and the girl who sits beside him in Philosophy, then Anika and that other girl from my Sport class who are really good dancers, then of course Nadine and Verena and Katrin who were with me, and Nadine's boyfriend. . . all these people dancing and they actually considered it a rather light turnout and said there would probably be a lot more people next time. I totally want to learn how to do these dances really well so that I can join in more (also because of cute German boys who dance well).

Coming home was pretty cool, too- Verena's dad drove us and it was really great to get in the car and not once explain to him that I was an exchange student- just direct him to Uckendorf and my house and it made me feel so at home here, like I really am a part of this country and the culture. I had a similar moment earlier today when Hans-Josef and Elke went to vote- Anna and Verena (host sister, not friend from school) and I were waiting and the poll workers were asking them how long until they'd be 18 and then they asked me and I said in 4 days and they said it was bad luck that I just missed the vote and then I had to explain that I'm not actually a German- it makes me feel really good that people don't know immediately, especially when I successfully have a conversation with them (which doesn't always happen in places like stores where people also assume that I'm German). I can't describe how great it feels to call this other country home, and to have it accept me so quickly and completely- I'm just on the biggest emotional high right now, and it's not the first time since I've been here- I wish I could convey it better, and I know my fellow exchange students know what I'm talking about, but the rest of you are just going to have to be a little left out on this one. Suffice to say that I can't imagine life being much better than it is right now.