It was early in my exchange year in Germany in the fall of 1993. I was living with my third host family, the G-Z family. My first host family was only for the summer orientation program and my original, permanent family did not work out, which is a story for another song. The exchange program would have easily placed me with another family, but there were no guarantees I would stay in the same town where I had already started school and begun to made new friends. They said I had the option to find another family on my own and then they would provide support to that new family. A student at my school, Ariane Z, who I didn't even know at the time, had heard about my plight and she called her mother to plead my case. Her mother was in Berlin at the time and I can only imagine what she was thinking when she heard that Ariane wanted to take in an American student who had been kicked out of her host family's home! Luckily for me, her mother was a kind, generous, trusting person who agreed to take me and then championed a huge outreach to find me a new, permanent family. Those two weeks with the G-Z family were so wonderful and I felt like I had been saved from an unknown fate. They were spirited, very busy, fast talkers, opinionated, close knit, and loving. Just like my very own family back in California. We stayed in touch throughout my year there, I visited them every time I returned to Germany, they visited me in California, and I am still in touch with them to this day.
During my two weeks, they took me on a few outings. One of the outings was a birthday party in another village. We took the train to the birthday party, but when we arrived, to my surprise, I learned that we would now be taking a 1-hour stroll through the woods to get to the party. Did I forget to mention it was raining fairly steadily? I thought this was a little strange, not that I was lazy, but we were wearing party clothes and shoes. After the party we walked a very short distance to another train station and I realized that hike was for fun! It was actually fun, aside from being really concerned about my hair, as we met up with some of their friends and we all walked together. Between the families, there were many younger kids and I was plenty entertained. At the same time, it was really only my 3rd month in Germany and I still had a ways to go before I could really communicate with ease in German. So I had a lot of time in my own head, with my own thoughts. I also had my own soundtrack for the day, which was Somebody Dance with Me. I thought that song was the best thing I had ever heard. I listened to it over and over, it had an amazing dance beat. The rapping was kind of cheesy, but I loved the chorus, which was sung with such great emotion. I loved it so much and I kept playing it in my hear over and over as we walked. It was also the song of the moment in Germany so I luckily had plenty of options to hear it at parties, on the radio, and on MTV. A couple years later I heard the recording of a live version in Switzerland and it was amazing. It made me want to stroll through the woods. In the rain!
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