<p>iwantwharton-
that's funny, I actually applied to a scholarship (Congress-Bundestag) to spend a year as an exchange student in germany. it's really competitive, but if i get it, i'm going to take a gap year and spend it in Germany before coming to (hopefully) Georgetown. So ideally I would love to come out of Georgetown fluent in English, Spanish and German, and with near-fluency in Chinese. You're right, that WOULD be amazing!</p>
<p>Wow! That sounds like a TON of fun, the Germany trip. </p>
<p>Good luck, I hope you get in and have a blast!</p>
<p>Thanks! I should find out in a few weeks if I'm a semi-finalist. I'm more nervous about it than Georgetown actually!!!</p>
<p>That's so awesome!! I'm taking a gap year too, before SFS, to the Republic of Belarus, so I'll be in the class of '11 with you if you end up going to Germany :)</p>
<p>do any of you people know how many gap-year people there are? i'd kind of expect there to be more of them than normal at SFS</p>
<p>Belarus...not much of a Republic.</p>
<p>hey man... they are the current world leaders in income equality</p>
<p>eeeerrt</p>
<p>Unfortunately, no statistics are available as to the obesity rate in Belarus, which leads the world in income equality, and therefore represents Polly Toynbee's vision of heaven on earth.</p>
<ul>
<li>Scott Burgess, <a href="http://dailyablution.blogs.com/the_daily_ablution/2004/05/%5B/url%5D">http://dailyablution.blogs.com/the_daily_ablution/2004/05/</a></li>
</ul>
<p>now the question is, do we trust wikipedia... or do we trust Scott Burgess of Daily Ablution blogs...</p>
<p>ann-
that's so cool! why are you going to belarus? what will you be doing over there? that's really exciting!!
I just found out today I'm a semi-finalist for the Germany scholarship!!! I have my interview in a week and a half (the day before I'm flying out to visit Georgetown!) so hopefully it goes well!!</p>
<p>estrella72-</p>
<p>i'm going to belarus through Rotary clubs, i will be learning russian, making friends, and hopefully drinking lots of vodka while there :)</p>
<p>congratulations on your scholarship!! i exchanged to Germany for a couple months, and im sure you've already heard this from everybody, but it's SUCH AN AWESOME COUNTRY </p>
<p>good luck on your interview!</p>
<p>ann-that's sounds like so much fun! I was actually going to apply through Rotary, but I was told incorrectly that I had to be under 18 at departure so I didn't apply in time. I really want to learn Russian (along with Spanish, German, Chinese and Arabic, haha). But that sounds like so much fun! Hopefully we can exchange stories at Gtown in 2007!!! Yeah everyone has told me how awesome Germany is, I'm sooo excited. I'm gonna have to settle for beer instead of vodka though :) When did you do an exchange to Germany? I'm always so nosy about asking about what people did on Germany exchanges, haha, I'm just soo excited!</p>
<p>I stayed in Germany with a friend for three months before my freshman year in Aachen, which is in Nordrhein Westfalen, and it was right on the border between Germany and Belgium, so I got to bask in second hand Brussels glory too </p>
<p>I wanna learn Arabic too - prettiest language ever</p>
<p>dont bother learning Chinese though. there are more Chinese people who can speak english than there are Americans... </p>
<p>jk! we'd love to have more white people in our ranks :)</p>
<p>haha well i'm pretty pale so i definitely qualify. I went to Spain over the summer for a rotary exchange and I totally stood out just because everyone was so tan and I'm NOT. My heritage is German so maybe I'll be taken for a local at first!</p>
<p>Are you really from Brookfield? Not that you're lying or anything, I was just wondering because all my family's from Wisconsin, do you know where Platteville is? i have family in beloit and milwaukee too.</p>
<p>Yup, I'm <em>really</em> from Brookfield. And I know where Platteville, Beloit, and Milwaukee are. You should be really thankful for having escaped the fate of your relatives. Wisconsin's not much to brag about...</p>
<p>yeah I definately stuck out pretty badly while I was over there, being asian and whatnot, it's a bit more of a homogenous environment in Euroland...</p>