Well, ladies and gentlemen, my 10 months or so in Germany is just about over. I'll be leaving on a jet-plane come this Friday at 10.00 AM German time.

Boy, what a year it's been. So much has happened - here in Germany, back home in the States, and all around the world - while I've been here that I don't even know where to begin.

I thought I'd give you a nice little recap of the year's happenings, but with so much having happened over a pretty long chunk of time, it'd be almost impossible to go over it all.

So I came up with the not-so-original idea of throwing it all down in a neat and orderly list, Momma Wacker style (this joke is only understood if you're in my immediate family. Let's just say that Mom likes making lists :) ).

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Los Geht's!! (Let's go!)

Places I've been/Things I've done:

-Oktoberfest: word cannot express how cool/fun this experience is. Everyone should go at least once in their life. And I mean the REAL Oktoberfest, not the fake one they do in Leavenworth.

-A bike tour with the ever so kind and friendly Baumann Family on the Mosel River, which is deep in the heart of the German wine country

-Berlin x4 (Met a good friend, Erin; Took two of my best friends from home, Sara and Leah, there; Fulbright Conference/Wacker Family Meeting; Met two college football teammates, Steve Martin and Drew Watkins.

-Hamburg x4 (Met my good buddies, Ian and Sean; Day trip with the Baumann Family; Met my aunt, Anna-Maria there for a 'soccer' match; Met my three good friends from the Fulbright, Ian, Alex, and Erin, there for a final get-together blowout party)

-Amsterdam x4 (Went with Alex, Ian, and Ashley - another Fulbright friend; Went with Leah and Sara; Went with two friends I made here in Bremen, Mena from Italy and Cristina from Spain; Met back up with Steve and Drew - They paid for my train tickets and place to sleep! Thanks again guys)

-Koeln (Cologne) and Duesseldorf with Leah and Sara.

-Saw a Sankt Pauli 'soccer' match with my awesome aunt Anna-Maria in Hamburg. Thanks for the t-shirt!! Then met up with Ian and chilled and threw the Frisbee around for a while.

-A field trip to a zoo with class 6B.

-A field trip to go ice-skating with the 5th and 10th grade classes.

-A field trip to go on a tour of Weser Stadium with class 6A.

-A week-long field trip with both 5th grade classes to a pony ranch (so much fun!)

-Went to a concentration camp with my family. Kind of a downer, I know, but it's something I feel is very important to learn about and be aware of.

-Had a big, huge, Wacker/Olbrich family meeting/party in Eckernfoerde (Where my mommy was born). It was the first time in the history of our families that we were all there together at once. A major big deal.

-Visit the little island of Fehmarn with my family. Both my mother's and father's families come from this island - small world!

-I met my cousins Jan, Tim, and Leif in Kiel for Kieler Woche. Great time. I spen most of the time with Jan and got to know him pretty well. See you in the Summer of 2010, hopefully!


Whew! I'm tired after just writing that!


Things that have happened since I left home:

-My sister got engaged! Of course, her fiance, Trever, had to wait until after I left. Oh well, all the same. Congrats to them! They're officially getting hitched in July 2010.

-OBAMA was elected!! (YES WE CAN!)

-Preposition 8 passed in California...unfortunately.

-China walks on the Moon for the first time.

-A $700 billion bailout of our terrible economy is approved by Congress.

-O.J. Simpson is finally convicted - of robbing two sports-memorabilia dealers at gunpoint in a Las Vegas hotel room.

-Pirates are back!! Jack Sparrow from 'Caribbean,' from the real ones.

-Madonna and Guy Ritchie split up after 8 years.

-Russia invaded Georgia.

-North Korea begins acting like a crazy communist country again and tests missiles and a nuclear bomb. The whole world is mad at them.

-Air France Flight 447 crashes somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, all 228 people on board were killed.

-Go Obama! Yes We Can! Wooohoo!

-I was offered (and accepted) a job to teach English in South Korea!

-One of my good friends and college football teammate, Beau Jacobson, passed away. R.I.P. Beau, I miss you brother.

-Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Billy Mays (the OxiClean man), David Carridine ("Bill" from the Kill Bill movies), and Paul Newman passed away. R.I.P. folks.

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A lot has sure has happened since I left Seattle on August 23rd, 2008. I had the incredible opportunity to experience the wonders of Deutschland, thanks to the Fulbright Fellowship.

But the journey does not end here: Like I just stated above, I'll be going to South Korea sometime around the beginning of September and will, of course, continue blogging.

I'd like to thank you all for reading my blog. I know sometimes it must have been a ride of highs and lows - boring/dry at some parts and incredibly fantastic at others (only joking, probably only just fantastic, hehe). I just hope you had as much reading about my experiences in Germany as I did writing/having them.

Make sure to check back 'ab und zu' (every now and then), I may just post something worth reading during the summer!

Much love to you all-

-Russell