Meet The Parents!

After an eight hour wait in the airport, and a four hour journey by train, Toby met his new host family and settled into his new home in Ammersbek. His parents are Ralf and Gudrun, and he has a brother Kester, who is 14. They also have a dog named Sunny.

Toby described the area as not quite suburban, but not quite small town either. ("You drive for two minutes and you're surrounded by farms, then two more minutes and you're into the next town/village/suburb.") He says the house is a similar size to ours, but it sounds like his room is much cooler. It has two levels; on the first he has a sofa, table, and TV, and then above is a loft with his bed and dresser and such.

On the train ride from Frankfurt, Toby was joined by Eva Wolf, who is writing and directing a documentary film about cultural exchange in Germany, focusing on AFS students. (Hmm, I'm absolutely certain her pitch to the film company was far more compelling than my lame description!) He said it went fine (that is his adjective of choice for everything that isn't amazing or horrible), and mentioned that he almost walked off with the lapel mic she had him wear, a fair indication that he was at ease with the whole thing...y'know, fine.

He's got a German language camp for the next two days...hopefully the bit of prep work he did over the summer will help him get more out of it. His parents speak a little, but not much, English. His brother Kester speaks more.

I think now I can sleep better, knowing he's got someone looking out for him...OMG, did I cause my parents this much stress everytime I took off somewhere?