My fingernails were white from clutching the handle to keep from falling onto my fellow backseat passengers as Anja, my host family's daughter, vigorously shifted into fourth gear and swerved onto the civilian drag strip that is the Autobahn.
I was already a little out of sorts because it was the Fourth of July and, instead of parades, barbeque and 90 degree heat, I had enjoyed a day of rain, 60 degree temperatures and the reality that James, another American student living with my host family, and I were speeding down the Autobahn at 160 kilometers per hour listening to Jay-Z with 26-year-old Anja, her German friend Sabine and their 6'2" Czech friend Martina.