Six Week Thoughts, Plus Milk on a Sled

Sometimes I forget I'm an exchange student. No, really. I feel so at home here, so much a part of school and family and choir and friends and pretzels, that sometimes I forget that I'm in Germany as an exchange student. It's difficult to explain. I'm used to only understanding about half of what anyone says to me, and so that's fine, although I really think my language is improving. All in all, I have to remind myself that this is where I worked so hard to get, what I looked forward to for almost a year, what consumed a large part of my thought process and conversations for quite a long time. The reason that I have to remind myself of this is that it feels so, so right to be in Germany, like I've been here forever (and also like I'm learning and seeing new things every day. I feel, quite honestly, and as cliched as it may sound, like I belong here.
It's crisp and lovely in Heidenheim, and it's hard and wonderful to believe that I've already been here for six weeks.

Saturday night was spent with my family at the Museumsnacht (yes, my very own 'Night at the Museum'), where one purchases a ticket and then can go into many art galleries, museums, the Schloss and other nice places. You also have the opportunity to ride in this adorable bus!

We walked in the dark city...

...admiring paintings....

...a jazzy man playing the piano...

...sculpture, both in a hip gallery...

Photo from http://www.wcm-open.de

...and in a church from the 14th century.

In the Schloss, we were greeted by a man on stilts, offering us chocolate...

...and then we looked around in the Schlossmuseum. Now. I love museums. And this one did not disappoint. Although we were in an old castle, the museum was for vehicles. And it was cool.

We saw an old fashioned mail wagon (the mail in Germany is always yellow)...

...the wagon where a shepherd would sleep...

...a sled that would be perfect for a Victorian date...

...an ingenious contraption for carrying milk through the snow...

...and then, as if that wasn't enough, I found my dream car. Too bad I'm not allowed to drive in Germany....

We took a quick bratwurst break...

...and then watched a lovely Oriental/modern dance performance, in which my sister balanced a sword on her head. 

After the performance, we all got up and danced to a medieval band.

The whole night was like a dream to me. Not because I saw a cool car or a castle or a man on stilts (although all of that was fabulous), but because I had a moment where I realized Oh, right, I'm an exchange student. I remembered the day I got the email telling me where I was going to live, who my family was; I remembered the frequent Google image searches of the Schloss, I remembered when the word 'Heidenheim' was the only thing that got me through math class. Suddenly, I realized that it was the city of Heidenheim, maybe more than the country of Germany, that I looked forward to all those long months of applications and checkups and emails. Last night, as I looked out over my city's lights on the way up to the Schloss, I was literally living the dream. Exactly where I had imagined myself for so long, speaking German with my family, feeling like I belonged.