My program started last Monday (June 26^th) and I never thought it would be like this. It is already the most amazing experience of my life. I arrived a week early in Frankfurt with my father because we wanted to take a little vacation (neither of us had been to Europe before) so we saw as much as we could. As soon as we landed we rented a car and drove to Paris. There we spent two full days exploring the city, finding all the major monuments, little hidden restaurants that only the locals know about, and just getting out of the comfort zone I have back home. The culture shock hit me HARD. Figuring out how to communicate with people was initially very awkward, uncomfortable, and difficult. But I got over that fast (didn’t have much choice) and started to have so much fun. The last day in Paris we had breakfast and packed up out things. we drove up to Bruges, Belgium where we got lunch and Belgium waffles for obvious reasons. We finished the day by having dinner in Amsterdam and walking around the city. Had three meals in three totally different countries all in the same day. After Amsterdam, we drove down to Dusseldorf to see a bit of Germany before my classes started up. We finished the trip in Kassel, the city I’m currently studying in. By the time my host family had come to pick me up, I was beat. I had seen 4 countries in the span of a week. I finally understood how people can take weekend trips from one country to another if they live in Europe.