July 10th

I'm back home, in Denmark, Hillerød. I have been since Wednesday.

Honestly, I'm still not realizing, but that might have something to do with the fact that I left for the well known Roskilde festival the day after I came back, and just came back Monday... Hehehe

I think I mentioned that getting from Atlanta to Copenhagen took me approximately 4 days, didn't I?

Well I think I'm going to describe a little bit of how it all went (although I doubt anyone reads this.. maybe Francine!).

It started Sunday after saying all my goodbyes to friends stopping by, to Agnes the previous day, and to Carolina leaving for work; we - Steve, Marina, Julia and I, went to the Vila International in Atlanta where we got dropped off and said goodbye for good.

It was horrible. I started bawling when I said goodbye to Marina, and so did she. First then, I kind of hit me. And yet..

Afterwards, when they left, I just sat in a chair for 30 minutes and couldn't stop crying.

It was absolutely terrible.

Luckily, my AFS buddies were there (asides from Pedro and Alessandra; who both left early) to keep my mind off such sad things for the following 3 days. We were joined by the Alabama kids who I found to be very nice people too, and we were just all a big group of happy friends travelling. It sure made leaving easier. It felt more like travelling than leaving actually.

Anyways; we went out to dinner and ate Thai food, went to Starbucks, had Coke floats, played games, made posters for the next generation of AFS exchange students in GA and AL, and just chilled out for the rest of the night.

Monday morning, we left the Vila early in the morning to get to the airport in time to make sure no one had problems with their luggage and so. I passed! 50 pounds in one suitcase, and 49 in another one! Perfect. On the other hand, I had a backpack and a big purse; both incredibly heavy, that I had to carry around. Trust me, after 3 days of travelling, my back was not happy. It hurt like "#¤%&/ !!!!

But we got to NYC, we all talked about how much we missed the good ole' south already at the airport, and proceeded to join the MissTenCky (guess 3 states!) and Florida kids at St. John's University in Queens; where we "spent the night". Again, we enjoyed each other's company, walked around, talked, partied it up , but not many people slept. We had to leave the University at 4 am for the next destination: CW post at the Long Island University. Many people, including me, decided it wasn't worth trying to sleep.

We crashed in the hallways of the dorms and ate leftover pizza from dinner. I made quite a lot of friends from all over the world, that night.

So we left Queens in busses, in the middle of night. AFS gave us (the exchange students) little tags with name, flight numbers, destinations and what not. They also indicated at what time we were to leave the CW post to go to the airport. Oscar, from Columbia, was scheduled to leave at 7 am - which was basically just after we got there. Knowing that this was the end of AFS Georgia 08/09, I couldn't hold back my tears. Again, I felt like everything from this year was just being ripped apart. At least, we were together - even though it was a very short amount of hours.

New York was beautiful at sunrise when the roads were yet almost empty and it was relatively quiet.

We arrived at the CW post, got checked for swine-flu and put our luggage at the sign with the number printed on our little tags - a number that also indicated how early or late you'd get to leave.

So we settled. Breakfast was served, I sat with Andy, the other ones joined, and we waited.

Oscar left as the first one. Then Julio, then Fabi, and then it was my turn - at 2.40 pm. I'll never forget it.

We'd been sitting outside in the shade, waiting and waiting. By then, I still hadn't slept since Sunday night. It seemed like it had been a forever-long-day, although it had been two. Since I didn't sleep Monday night and decided it wasn't worth trying to sleep Tuesday, while waiting for my departure, it got to a point where I had been awake for 34 hours. I was so tired mentally, but my body was getting overly awake from coffee, coke and what not.

But the time came for me to get my stuff into the bus, and leave.

Guy, Taresa, Andy and Michael came up to the bus and said goodbye. It broke my heart. I still find it hard to think about without having to take a deep breath and bite my lip.

Luckily, Cleo (danish AFS buddy) was there. It was awesome seeing her after we'd been two totally different parts of the US for a year!

So there we were, all the danes, on our way home. It was really awkard at the beginning, because we'd all be speaking English to each other. Me and Cleo slowly started tuning back into Danish (GOD I was having such a hard time the first few hours) so that we could be speaking it relatively well by the time we got to Copenhagen.

There's not much to say about this part.. I liked being with Danes again. It felt comfortable in a weird way. And when we all started speaking Danish, all the language jokes followed. I laughed so hard.

On the plane, I slept for an hour, just when we took off. Once I woke up I couldn't fall asleep again. I didn't sleep again untill I got home-home, in my bed. So I had slept one hour and 40 minutes from Monday morning, to Wednesday afternoon. With the time difference, it felt like it had all been one very long day. A 3-day long day.

We had a connecting flight in London that we almost missed, and when we got to Copenhagen I had a little drama with my passport that was lost, before I could leave. I left it on the plane, and I needed it to get in to Denmark, arriving from the UK.

But yeah, I got my luggage, walked out, my family was there, and so were a few friends; Emilie, Nanna, Carla, Lasse, Kasper and Jetty. It was so nice of them to be there, but I don't remember all of it clearly.

I remember I started crying of disappointment. It all seemed so wrong.

I got home, after a long train ride and hike through Hillerød, ate a tiny bit, an crashed at 6 pm. I was so exhausted.

The first days were horrible. I just cried all the time.

Then I went to Roskilde Festival. It was awesome. It helped alot.

Right now:

Denmark as a country is awesome.

I love seing my friends again.

It's really freaking freezing cold here.

I feel oddly misplaced. Nothing feels like home - including the US.

My suitcases have not been emptied yet - I try to stay out of my room as much as possible.

I'm leaving for France on Sunday. I've been excited about that for a looooong time. I really like it there; especially because it's the only time of the year where I get to be French, for real. AND let's not forget that I love spending time with my Grand-Maman.

I don't feel like posting pictures. They're on facebook, probably.

I think I'm gonna go to bed now.

I hope yall/whoever's reading this now are doing well!

ps. Glenn wrote me a song.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/7/7/2501848/Denmark.mp3

my song, I love it <3

- Look up his band, HuzZah on FB!