Step One: Get to Germany

So what's the protocol when packing to leave for a year? Looking around at the heinous disaster in my room, it's pretty clear that I have no idea. Should I bring one item of each type of clothing then fill the rest of my backpack with boxers and socks? Probably not. Should I fill my suitcases then use my brother's extra luggage allowance to carry my collection of milk caps? That also seems ill-advised. If there is one thing about packing that I learned from my time living in Spain, it is that the memories we cherish most rarely include details about what we clothes we were wearing or how well our shoes matched our shirts. It's important to be present and open to experience, and that's not something that I can roll up and put at the bottom of my bag. So the rule as of right now, at 2:06 am on the 16th of August, 2010, is to keep it light. Plus I can always steal from Florian when I get there.

I have yet to wrap my mind around the fact that I'm on the precipice of leaving for a year. Having just come back from two of the most challenging, life-changing months of my life working as the Program Director for the NSLC (Nat'l Student Leadership Conference) on Health & Medicine, things still seem a little like a whirlwind. It'll be nice to surrender to the whole process when I get on the plane in two days, because once I cross that threshold there's little I can do to put on the brakes.

Just as a little background to provide this whole thing with some context: I just graduated from UC Davis this June and am taking two years off before I apply to medical school. The first of these years I've decided to spend in Germany, living with Germans, working in the medical field and exploring the culture and language. I will be living in Würzburg, a city of about 150,000 people in the state of Bavaria (the southernmost of 16 states in Germany.) I am rooming with Stefan Walter, the older brother of Florian Walter, a bube I got to know when he did a year-long exchange with my family in 2005-2006. His parents, Erich and Sigi, live about 30 minutes from Würzburg and will serve as my surrogate parents while I'm living in Germany. The final member of the Walter Clan is Benjamin, Flo's eldest brother who lives and studies in Karlsruhe. My plan for the year is to work various internships that the Walter family has so graciously organized for me. At the moment my work situation appears as follows: three months as an intern to the chief of medicine in a hospital in Würzburg, three months as an assistant at St. Martins Schule, a school for developmentally disabled children in Bad Kitzingen and three months in the pediatric office of Herr Unkelbach, a family friend of the Walters. At this point in time I'm not sure how firm these commitments are and every time I try to get information out of Sigi, she invariably tells me that I simply need to show up. How lucky I am to have my own personal planning team.

So that's where I am at the moment - very few expectations, quite a bit of nervousness and two unpacked bags. I know that a lot will change really fast (especially with regards to the bags) leaving me vulnerable and excited. Here's a bon voyage and I will be checking in again very soon from the other side of the globe!