I received my acceptance email after school. I immediately called my mom, and we screamed together with me in the school parking lot for at least twenty minutes.!!! After the long application process and interview, I could not believe that I was going to be a student ambassador for the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange. (For more information on the exchange program visit  http://www.usagermanyscholarship.org/ ) This letter meant that all my hard work would allow me to live in Germany for a year. Over these past two months I have realized just how quickly July is approaching. Having only studied Spanish, I am very nervous about learning German, so I spend all my free time cramming as much Rosetta Stone and Duolingo into my head as possible. I think the hardest part of the process now is waiting to find out who my host family will be. I really want to know where I am going and whether I will have any host siblings or host pets, so I check my email hundreds of times a day. It is a very bittersweet beginning to the summer because I have had to say goodbye to many close friends who I will not see during my year abroad. But I am extremely excited to start this adventure, meet new people, and learn German, so this blog will hopefully catalog my journey and allow my friends and family to follow me and experience Germany through my posts.