Back to America Part 2

I got my rant out about American politics out in the previous post, so here's a more personal one...

The anxiety about going back to America has been a lot more pronounced than leaving America. I guess I would attribute this to the fact that for the four days before I left for Germany, I had the flu and was bedridden with a 100+ temp...soooo I wasn't exactly thinking about going to Germany, I was just focused on making it there in once piece.

Leaving here is a different story though. I've been done with schoolwork for over a week now, and I've been saying goodbye to my friends one by one. The bulk of us are leaving tomorrow, but I had to say bye to Becca yesterday which was pretty hard. For the last week, everyone from home has been asking me how I feel about leaving, and I just kept telling them that it hadn't hit me yet, which was true, until yesterday. I started packing on Sunday--it's so depressing to pack away a life you made into three bags. It really is. But when I said bye to Becca at the train station yesterday, it actually hit me that I was leaving in less than two days. I'm obviously very sad to be leaving, but I'm not denying it or anything, or even upset about it. I talked to Brock about this and realized that when I left BC after fall semester, I was not ready to go abroad. I didn't want to leave my friends or Boston. I knew I would have an amazing semester, but I was worried what I would miss back home (hence the title of my blog!)

Well, the semester has now come to an end, I had an absolutely amazing time. I couldn't have asked for more-- better trips, better friends, a better city. And so when I got upset about leaving, I remembered the fantastic life that I left-- everyone I know that's gone abroad is since back and they have all said that absolutely nothing has changed. It's as if they never left. I know it'll be the same for me-- I'm going to return to my amazing and fantastic life that I love, to my friends from home whom I'm so excited to see, and then to a school that I couldn't love more as well as friends there that I miss dearly. I'll be very interested to see how I've changed. I don't know how I've changed, and it hasn't been in any drastic way, but I'll be interested to discover it when I get home. I've been in Boston for five semesters at college, but the semesters were never as long as five months, and I would come home once a semester for breaks. Although I saw my mom halfway through my time here, this is still the longest I've ever been away from my home, and of course the longest I've ever been away from my country! I've created a temporary life for myself here, and unlike my dorm at BC, when I said "home" or "my house" here, I was referring to my home here in Heidelberg. My friends in my program were truly my family and we all grew so close and I honestly could not have imagined a better group of people to spend five months with.

I'm going to miss Heidelberg dearly, but I have to return to the real world sooner or later! My life her has been kind of a surreal blur and it's time to step back into reality. And as promised, here's part 3/3: the things making me excited about going back to America.

-big supermarkets that are always stocked: capitalism is truly alive and well in Germany because in just the city center, there are literally 6 different grocery stores to choose from. Unfortunately, they are all small and it's a game of chance as to whether they have what you want. When I would do big grocery shopping, I'd sometimes have to go to three different stores in one trip just to complete my list. It'll be very nice just to go to Giant and have everything I could ever need in one space.

-being 21 in America: as most know, I turned 21 abroad, so I'll be entering a whole new part of life when I return-- the world of bars! It'll be funny though because I will never know how much I'm ordering. I only know alcohol content in terms of liters, so that'll be interesting when it actually comes time to order something.

-$: in my last post I talked about how the dollar is falling, falling, falling. Well, I'm getting out of Europe just in time, because my bank account is severely low (it was all worth it though) and it'll be really nice to take out $50 from the ATM and have $50 drawn from my account, rather than the exchange rate making 50 euro more like $72. Speaking of ATMs, it'll be SO NICE to be able to use my debit card for everything again!

-my bed: mentioned this in 2/3, my bed here is broken and squeaks like crazy. I can't wait to collapse on my puffy, fluffy, full size bed tomorrow night.

-my car: I know I said how much I loved my bike, and it's very convenient in a city to travel via bike, and there are no DUIs for bike riding, but I'll be so happy to have a car again! When spontaneous outbursts of rain start, I won't get soaked, and I won't be sweating balls when I get to my destination. Actually that's not true. Whenever I would drive to work last summer in the DC heat, the car was a sauna and I would arrive at work sweating balls. Actually now that I think about it, I've burned so many calories by riding my bike everywhere...and my legs have gotten more muscular... okay maybe I'm going to miss the bike more than I want my car back...

-AC: (not Anderson Cooper, but yeah, I miss him too!) bit air conditioning. I already talked about how summer apparently doesn't exist in Heidelberg, but the air conditioning will be nice. Except when stores make it an ice box.

-EST: I'll be in the same time zone as nearly all of my friends! the six hour time difference honestly has not been that bad, but it'll be nice not to have to think about it anymore.

-COFFEE: OMG I have missed coffee SO MUCH. They have coffee to-go here, but it's never really on my way and it's just not that good. There's a coffee maker in the center, and about once both of the last weeks and I made some and drank a few cups at one time, and my caffeine tolerance has gone down so much that I was just freaking out and shaking. I've got a water heater in my apartment, and tried doing the instant coffee for a while but it was just not the same so I stopped drinking coffee altogether. I don't miss coffee for the caffeine though, I just miss drinking it! Cannot wait to wake up every morning and make a fresh pot of some DD vanilla bean coffee!

-cold fridges: Nothing in Germany is kept cold, and I never really understood why. When you go grocery shopping, the eggs and the milk are just kept in the normal area. And then you come home, and the fridge is just barely cold and the freezer could fit maybe one frozen meal in it. Yes, everything is fresher and has less preservatives, but sometimes it's nice to have a cold drink!

-milk: the milk here is so gross. It's just so...milky. (Again, fresher...but...) I love milk so much and I haven't had a glass in five months now. I would put it in my muesli in the morning, but other than that, no milk. I made sure to tell my mom to have a gallon of cold skim milk waiting for me in the fridge when I arrived home :D

-wheat thins: what can I say? There is just no suitable replacement.

-carpet: I mentioned that my room has a hard linoleum floor. I'm excited to return to nice fluffy carpet.

-working out: I've been working out at a gym, either at home or at the plex at school, for a solid two years now, and I just went five months without touching any weights. I ran a good 4-5 times a week and did squats and sit-ups and stretches in my room, and I'm sure my legs have gotten stronger with all the biking, but I honestly just miss going to the gym and working out.

-SUMMER WEATHER: I'll end my list here because it'll be the first thing that hits me. It hasn't hit above 70 here in weeks, and the forecast for tomorrow in DC is a high of 91. I know that summer in DC is oppressively hot and humid, but after not having it for this long, I miss it. I feel like I've been robbed of my summer and I want it back!

Alright, there it is. My last list, and all three parts of the saga (again, I realize it's not a saga per se, but just humor me.) I apologize for the extreme dearth of photos for the last seven weeks, but I got lazy and busy with other things. I land at Dulles tomorrow at 3:45 EST so if you're my friend and I like you, feel free to send me a welcome home text that I'll receive when I turn my phone on after landing! I'm sure I'll keep posting throughout the summer about the reverse culture shock and how boring my life is going to get when I'm not jetting off on European vacation weekends twice a month, but I'd like to think that I'll still be able to find interesting things to do and then write about. It's been an absolutely amazing semester, as I said, I couldn't have asked for more. I'm off to my last German dinner, going to drink my last German beers, watch my last Heidelberg sunset, and live out the rest of my hours abroad in Heidelberg!