Semesterabschluss

This blog entry is a combination of a journal entry I wrote on the train to work last week and my current thoughts. Please note that it is 3 in the morning as I write.

I meant to write in this much sooner, but procrastination (not busy-ness. I like to lie to myself and pretend that I'm busy, when I actually have a lot of free time that I waste doing things other than homework. Like this.) prevented me from doing so. Also, sometimes I feel like something significant has to happen in my life in order to justify writing a blog entry. Unfortunately, not that much that's that significant ever does. Or, at least not things that I feel like sharing in here.

I will go back to a few weekends ago, because that's where I left off and I feel like it's necessary to document that experience. Saturday, January 31 my friend Jason invited a bunch of us out to spend the night in a cabin in the Black Forest near Hinterzarten with his friend Louisa, her boyfriend and some of her friends. And so we went.

We were lucky enough to have an absolutely beautiful (albeit cold) day. After meeting in town and filling everyone's bags to the brim with food and alcohol, we took a regional train about forty minutes southeast of Freiburg to the town of Hinterzarten, where we aussteiged and trudged (it was a slow and painful walk due to the amount of stuff we were carrying) the half hour or so to the cabin. Seeing as Hinterzarten is significantly higher above sea level than Freiburg, there was a considerable amount of snow on the paths once we got out of the Innenstadt. The roads were criss-crossed with cross-country skiing trails, and at one point we passed a large homemade ice rink on which parents were playing with their little kids and groups of preteen boys were playing ice hockey. When we finally reached the cabin, it was adorably picturesque, surrounded by snowy pines, the only sign of establishment in sight. The interior was equally as enjoyable; very rustic feeling, with wooden shutters and extremely low ceilings that caused poor Jason quite a bit of trouble.

After eating soup and attempting to start a fire in the Kachelofen, most of us bundled back up to go for a hike. The sky was wonderfully clear and there was hardly any wind, which meant perfect conditions to avoid freezing to death. The snow on the paths was mostly hard-packed and in some spots iced over, so our feet didn't get wet but there were quite a few wipe-outs. At one point, we came to a completely frozen lake and gambled to venture out onto it and play around a bit in the open space. Overall, it was beautifully enjoyable. Sometimes I'm still amazed by the Schönheit of the places I live so close to. It's unreal.

When we got back to the cabin we passed some time teaching the Belgians we were with stupid card games and trying not to freeze, as the Kachelofen hadn't quite warmed up any of the rooms yet. When it sarted getting dark and Louisa's boyfriend Andreas arrived we all helped make dinner, which was a modified version of chili con carne and pasta. After eating a heaping plateful each we were all warm and full from our food babies, which meant it was the perfect time to open the first of four bottles of wine.

We spent the evening playing a very rousing and somewhat violent game of spoons, as well as teaching the Europeans a few more vulgar American drinking games. Around 3 we had exhaused ourselves and our booze supply, so everyone went to bed except for Jason and me, who stayed up doing shots and having a 2-person dance party/heart-to-heart in the kitchen until 5. Lovely.

The next morning (aka afternoon, seeing as how most of us slept until noon) we had a lovely pancake breakfast, cleaned up the cabin and took off. Unfortunately, Andreas' SUV had gotten stuck in the snow on the way to the cabin the day before, so we spent about an hour pushing/digging it out during which Kelly nearly got run over. We got back to Freiburg around 4ish, and Jason, Becca, Rachel and I went into town to get Döners. To our surprise, a Fastnacht parade was going through the city. There were people in costumes and masks everywhere, and the people parading were giving out candy and throwing confetti and other such festive things. There are Fastnacht/Fasching festivals going on all over Germany in the coming weeks - I keep seeing people in town in full costume. The biggest Fasching festivals are in Düsseldorf and Köln, and I'd really like to experience them some time.

The following weekend my roommates and I had a party in our WG. There was quite a big turn out from both Americans and Germans, and I think/hope everyone enjoyed themselves. Our kitchen was kind of a mess for a bit too long, which prompted one of my slightly more up-tight (read: bitchy) roommates to have a fit. So it goes.

Last week was our final week of classes for the semester. It feels extremely strange to say that I'm done with a whole semester here, especially considering I haven't really felt like a student the entire time I've been here. I have one Hausarbeit (10-page term paper in German) and a Klausur to write by the beginning of March which I really need to get started on. After that, I'm free to enjoy the Semesterferien and all of the exciting things that come with it - Andy's visit, Ireland/UK adventure with Becca, whatever I decide to do in April. It's going to be a weird couple of months, but I'm really looking forward to them.

The past few days (after finishing history paper from hell #2 Wednesday night) have been really, really good. Recently I've been spending a lot more time with people than normal - a lot of trips to the gym, movies, dinners, etc. A lot of Riesling. Some unexpected developments that I definitely don't mind. I'm a lucky girl.

The weather lately, however, has been shit. I haven't been sleeping well, and I've been having some really vivid and bazaar dreams. But besides that, I have nothing, at all, to complain about.

Emo ramblings

Lately, I've been spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about home. Not in a "I'm really homesick" way, but in a "it's going to be so fucking weird when I have to leave here and go home" way. And it's hard to elaborate on these thoughts to other people here, because a lot of us probably don't want to think about it, or maybe are having the same kinds of feelings too, or maybe just because it's so hard to organize the jumble of conflicting feelings going through my mind. But I figure this is probably a good place to try to do that, so I apologize if this post makes no sense to anyone or if I seem to contradict myself a thousand times.

Sometimes when I'm alone in my room or walking through town something will suddenly make me think of something I used to do at home - very normal things, like driving from Royal Oak to East Lansing with my windows down singing to my music, or being at home in my living room wasting time watching reruns of America's Next Top Model, or talking to my mom (I know this is normal, but if there is one person from home who I legitimately miss, it's my mom. There have been multiple occasions when I would've given almost anything just to go home for a weekend and hang out with her) - and I get this feeling, that's not quite sadness or homesickness, but more of a dull achy longing to do those things again, and I think to myself that I still have 6+ more months here, and it feels like an absolute eternity. It's always a very brief and fleeting feeling, and it doesn't come very often, and it completely contradicts the much stronger feeling I have that I enjoy my life here so much and can't believe this experience is going to be over in only six short months. But it comes around every so often, and it literally makes my heart ache (the fact that my emotions can cause me physical pain is a whole different story). And I think that's completely normal.

But sometimes I wonder if I think about home, and what it will be like when I get back, a little too much. I often find myself thinking about people I used to know, and wondering if I'm going to see them when I return. Or I'll think about my house for next year, and how excited I am for it. And maybe it's just because I'm really looking forward to the next few years of my life, but I wonder if I'm the only one who's really excited for the life I'm returning to back home in August.

There were times last spring when I was walking through campus on my way to class or work, and I would look around me - at the other students, at the river, which was still full of chunks of ice, at the buildings and landscape and whole world I have grown so familiar and comfortable with over the last few years that I can safely say that I am absolutely in love with the place; and I would think to myself, I made the conscious decision, back when I was a senior in high school, to come to this place, and now I'm making the same decision to leave it. I only get four short years to enjoy what I have come to think of as the wonderful life that is being an undergraduate Michigan State University, and I'm choosing to forgo one of those years to live somewhere else, somewhere uncertain, on the other side of the world, without any of my friends or family or the comforts of home. And sometimes it scares me that I've become old enough to make those decisions - that when I was thinking about coming here, it was never a concern of whether or not my parents would allow it, but instead of whether or not I myself would allow it. When did I become responsible enough to choose to live overseas for a year? My transition from a child to an adult happened so quickly and smoothly that I didn't even realize it occurred.

I'm getting off-topic. The other day I was looking up flights for coming home, not because I'm so urgent to get out of here (that is completely not the case), but because my flight is currently scheduled for May (I have a flexible ticket, since we couldn't book a return journey far enough in advance when we bought our tickets last year) and I need to get it changed before airline prices start going up. So I looked at a calendar and tried to figure out how much time I think I'll want here after the semester is over and Hausarbeits are due, and I decided that the week of the 17th is probably the best to shoot for. But I simply couldn't bring myself to actually set a date. I'm putting off calling STA Travel because I am not comfortable with having a set amount of days left here. It's so much easier to just simply speak in approximations; once that date is set, it's final, and that day will be the day I'm forced to leave this life behind.

Because this isn't just a year abroad; it's so incredibly much more than that, in ways I can't describe because I know I haven't realized some of them yet. This is an experience that can never be repeated, and I know I should make the most of every single day I have here, because I'm never going to be able to do this again. That's the big difference about leaving home and leaving here - when I left home, I knew, with relative certainty, that when I came back, most of the things I left were still going to be there, and I was going to be able to come back and resume my old life. But what I'm doing here is so ultimately temporary. Yes, Freiburg will still be here after I leave, and it will continue to be the thriving, beautiful place that I have so come to love. But everything non-physical that I associate with Freiburg - the way it feels to live here, the simply wonderful friendships I have made, the people here who I am in love with - it all ends in August, and that is decided and final. There is no coming back. This wonderful, perfectly surreal world I am living in is incredibly temporary.

I was talking to Jeff the other day about the notion of temporarity. Growing up, my life was so stable - I kept most of the same friends all throughout school, I lived in the same house with the same people, and I was comfortable with knowing that my life was going to remain the same for all of those years. The first big transition of my life was, obviously, moving to East Lansing and going to State, but even that wasn't such a big change, because almost all of my friends were either with me at State or were still at home when I went back to visit. And I knew that I had at least four years of that stability left. But now we've all gotten to the age where we have to make decisions regarding our future and where we're going to be for the rest of our lives, and it makes me realize how temporary the next few years of my life are going to seem. Once I leave here, I have one more year at State, and then I'll do my teaching internship, hopefully in Detroit, during which I'll most likely live in Royal Oak. But after that? As long as all goes well, I'll pursue continuing to teach in Detroit, and I'd really love to move into the city. So I'll never be too far away from the physicalities of the stable life I grew up with - but everything is going to be different. The people I've gotten to know and love over the years are going to be scattered all over the place. Never again will I have a long period of time knowing that I'm going to be around those people. And I know part of growing up is learning to leave things behind, but I'm just so not ready to yet.

I cannot imagine how it's going to feel to leave this place, knowing that I will probably only see most of the people I've met here again once or twice before we all lose touch and go on with our own lives. I'm so glad that I'll be living with Becca next year because she'll be one of the only people I'll see on a consistent basis who will remotely understand how I'm going to feel. It's going to be unbelievably sad. I think leaving Freiburg is going to break my heart.

Which is why it's best not to dwell on such things, but instead to move forward and make the most of the precious time I have left. Believe me, these aren't things I'm constantly thinking about, nor does the thought of having to leave spoil the time I have here. Because I know how incredibly lucky I am to be living the life I'm living, and I'm not going to complain about the bad feelings that come with leaving such a life. This was just an attempt to articulate some of the things that pop up in my overly-active mind from time to time.

The last few weeks since Berlin have been, while uneventful, rather lovely. I'm enjoying (too much) this period of relative unbusiness before crunch time for Hausarbeits sets upon me. I really should be researching for my history paper instead of writing an emotional blog entry, but I think everyone who knows me knows my issues with productivity.

Tomorrow I'm going with the lovely Jason B. Ernst and a bunch of other friends to a cabin on Feldberg (the highest mountain in the Schwarzwald) for the night for snow-shoeing and other lovely winter activities. I'm so unbelievably excited. Expect a post with lots of snowy pictures to follow.

Ich bin kein Berliner...

... but I did enjoy the excursion.

Before I get into that though, I will elaborate more on events in the month of January. The day after my last post was my 21st birthday, which was (while anti-climatic, as expected) absolutely lovely. Becca came over in the afternoon to make no-bakes, and stayed for the lovely dinner Kara and Noah cooked for me. After dinner we headed to Schlappen, where approximately four girls and one thousand boys joined me for drinks. Since I started a little early I was completely unopposed to taking the last Strassenbahn home, which I did, and then continued to "drink" aka attempt to do my dishes in the kitchen. Since I was kind of drunk and kind of ridiculous, I went to be at the early hour of 2-3 in the morning (memory eludes me). Despite the absence of my two darling birthday enforcers (Ashley and Stacy, of course), I had the happiest and tear-free-est (err...) birthday I've had in a long time.

Classes started and my good mood ended on January 7. The following Monday I had a Referat (a long and painfully German oral presentation) in my history course. Joanna and I were assigned the 1973-1989 time period, so we focused on environmental protection, the peace movement in East Germany and the Rote Armee Fraktion, a left-wing terrorist group that was active in the seventies. It was actually extremely interesting to do the research, which meant that I got very little sleep all weekend. Overall, I think the presentation went relatively well, and I think I'm going to write my final paper for that class on the RAF, which means I have a bit of a head start as compared to last time in that I actually know something about the topic I'm writing about.

Thursday I left for Berlin with the twenty-something other AYFers in the class (history) for which it was a requirement. I'll shortly summarize the trip day by day:

Thursday: Wake up excruciatingly early (remember when I said I didn't get much sleep all week?) to get to the train on time. Sit on the train for seven hours. Arrive at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof and wait outside in the deary, muddy cold for forty minutes while our program coordinators try to remember what we're supposed to be doing. Go to the hostel for dinner and a Referat on the Holocaust Mahnmal. Go to bed because we're all unbelievably tired.

Friday: Wake up excruciatingly early. Head to the Bertold Brecht Haus. Become immensely confused as to how to split a group of 25 into two. End up not going with either group and instead chatting with my (adorably) geeky history professor (teacher?), Becca and Kara. Get a private-ish tour of the house and cemetary. Eat delicious Thai food. Walk to the Brandenburger Tor and slide around on the ice. Go to the Holocaust Mahnmal (memorial) and Information Center below (which was extremely interesting in a devastatingly sad way. The entire time I was in there I was completely absorbed with a feeling that I simply cannot describe. The thing I remember most clearly was a room where excerpts of letters of the victims were illuminated in boxes along the floor. One of them was the postscript of a letter from a little girl to her parents in which she said goodbye to her father because she knew she was going to die and be "thrown in the pit" with all of the other children). Go back to the hostel and have dinner. Join many other AYFers, our resident director and our history professor at the hostel bar. Have a few drinks, then head out to a club dressed completely inappropriately for anything involving clubs. Dance and sweat like fools until two in the morning. Take the U-Bahn home.

Saturday: Wake up excruciatingly early. Take a tour of the Bundestag which wouldn't have been bad had I not been ready to fall asleep standing up. Head back to the hostel to drop off the comically large and rather unimpressive calendars we had all picked up (I suppose it's hard to resist free stuff). Have lunch at Checkpoint Charlie and meet up with the group for the longest and most painful Stadtführung of my life (try 4+ hours of walking around in the freezing cold while some mega-expert on Berlin explains, in great detail (and in German, no less), the most seemingly insignificant landmarks you can imagine. Berlin has such an extensive history and so many important and identifiable buildings/monuments, but did we go to the Brandenburger Tor, or Alexanderplatz, or really anything at all? Not really. At one point though, we did stop in front of a charter bus and a Trabi-Safari tourist attraction for about a half hour. We even had to take a 45-minute coffee/warm up/reassume sanity break at a nearby cafe for a while, which may sound nice but really just made the tour even longer). Go back to the hostel for dinner. Take a 2+ hour nap while all of the kids in the theater class go to a play. Hang out for a couple of hours and then go back to bed.

Sunday: Wake up excruciatingly early. Take one hundrend U-Bahns to the Stasi Museum. Find out the Stasi Museum isn't actually a museum, but a horribly-decorated former Stasi building (which sounds cool, but it wasn't). Experience the longest and most painful non-Stadt Führung of my life (it was so bad that our resident director and half of the group stayed on the first floor (read: American second floor) while the rest of us almost died of boredom upstairs. Upon discovering that we had been locked in the building, two of the AYFers (Colin and Jay) actually jumped out the first floor men's bathroom window in an attempt to escape. Colin may have broken his foot in the process). Take one hundred U-Bahns back to a normal part of town and have to rush to eat because the awful tour took an hour longer than planned. Go to the Jüdisches Museum which was enormous and extremely cool. Go back to the hostel for some rest before dinner at the local Barbeque and Pizzeria (it was better than it sounds). Chat with some very vulgar newspaper-reading boys. Attempt to watch a movie with my hostel roomies. Join the men in the hostel bar for a beer. Go to bed.

Monday: Wake up excruciatingly early. Go to the East Side Gallery, the largest remaining section of the Berlin Wall which is currently covered in beautiful artwork (and lots of graffiti). Take the U-Bahn to Zoologischer Garten and wander around for an hour looking for somewhere to eat. Find an adorable cafe and chat with Becca about things far in the future. Go to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächnis Kirche. Goof around on the fountain/modern art behind it. Go to the Hauptbahnhof and wait an hour for our train. Sit on the train for seven hours. Arrive in Freiburg and head directly to Schlappen to have a beer for Jason's birthday. Get home at one in the morning and decide the things I was going to prepare for work are simply not important enough to keep me from my bed for any longer. Fall asleep.

Perhaps that wasn't as short as I originally intended.

Today at work I had my first day of the writing "class" that I'm now teaching every two weeks to Gymnasium (high school, kind of) students. I only have two students at the moment but I'm supposed to get more later. I worked with them on prepositions and the correct way to write an introduction to a paper. I thought it was going to be disastrous because I had barely prepared anything due to my overwhelming exhaustion the night before, but it was about one thousand times better than I had expected. It's kind of amazing to even myself how much I really genuinely enjoy teaching. It baffles me sometimes that I found something I love to do so much so easily and early in life. I really have no idea how I happened upon it, but I feel so lucky for having a direction in life that I am so excited for.

I've been here for almost five months now. The time has gone by so fast. I don't want to be close to halfway done; I have so much more I want to do and see. For the Semesterferien, Andy Webb is besuchening me, plus Becca and I have planned and booked a trip to Dublin, London and Edinburgh in March (we'll be in Dublin for St. Patrick's Day...!!!). I am incredibly excited for both.

So while I'm no longer sickeningly optimistic, I am genuinely happy, in all aspects of my life. I really am such an extremely fortunate person for everything I have. I can't wait to see what the future will bring.

Sorry for being so corny and sentimental. :)

Life is beautiful :)

I know overwhelming optimism can get old after a while, but I just can't help being extremely happy lately. This winter break was undoubtedly the best I've ever had. I am absolutely in love with Freiburg and everyone I know here.

One thing that I really like about my program is that, even though we all kind of have our own cliques (having 40 people on the program makes that kind of inevitable), we all really like each other. The mixture of personalities we have is perfect; I didn't think it was possible to absolutely adore such a large number of people. It makes living here so cool, because every time we go out with people who I don't hang out with quite as much it's always so much fun. And while I realize that hanging out mostly with Americans isn't going to do much for my language skills, I kind of don't care, because the Americans I know here are all so amazing, and since we're all from the midwest, there's a pretty decent chance we'll still see each other at least a few times after we go back to America.

And I know I always beg everyone to come visit me, but one of the main reasons why I wish all of my friends from home could come here is so they can meet all of the people I know here.

Due to the fact that I'm super cheap, I'm not usually such a big fan of the bars, but the last few nights out have been so much fun. Friday night we went to a bar downtown called Elpi and danced to music you'd never think you'd dance to at a bar for probably four or five hours. Last night I went out with a bunch of guys who live in StuSie (plus Beth and her sisters) to Feierling, a brewery/restaurant-y type place that's very warm and comfortable and German. They had a special dark beer available called Brunhilde, so I had two. It was wonderfully pleasant.

Today Kara roused me out of bed at 12:30 to go out to Schauinsland (the highest point in Freiburg) with her, Noah, Andrew and Becca. We ascended from the city on a cable car through snow-covered pine trees and low-hanging clouds to reach the top peak, which is over 1200 meters above sea level. There was snow and slippery winding paths and parents pulling their little children in sleds all over the place. We slid around and fell down and climbed up to a tower from the top of which you could see the Alps in the distance. To the west the sun was setting and there were peaks of a full-circle rainbow through the clouds. My hands and legs burned with the cold but it was so amazingly beautiful that it simply didn't matter.

I'm hoping to go to the bar - probably Schlappen because it's warm and cozy and has delicious Flammkuchen - tomorrow night for my birthday. It's weird to think that I'm turning 21. While all of the significance it would have for me if I was in America doesn't really matter here, it's still strange to think about how old I've gotten without even noticing.

Willkommen, 2009

Heute bin ich unglaublich fröhlich. Warum? Keine Ahnung. Alles ist wunderbar, alles ist schön. Ich glaube, dass ich das glücklichste Mädchen in dem Welt bin. Wirklich. :):):)

New Years was perhaps the most amazingly surreal night of my life. As planned, a bunch of friends came over around 9ish, and we all hung out and drank sangria and felt lovely. At most, there were around 15 people there, which was perfect. At 11:30 we headed into town on a completely packed Strassenbahn. When we got to Bertoldsbrunnen it was already insane - people everywhere, fireworks being lit off in the street. We followed the crowd towards Schlossberg and after a very fast, slippery and drunken climb were all relatively high. At some point we got separated, but I ended up with five friends at the top of a tower, standing with three of them on a raised platform that was probably not big enough for four people, and we stood huddled together watching fireworks go off next to us, above us, under us, in the trees and near the ground, in literally every direction. It was hazy and foggy and after midnight it started snowing, the kind of light snow that comes down in big flakes and reminds you of your childhood and everything that's right in the world. At midnight we sang happy birthday to Sam and some of the Germans around us joined in in their silly accents. Everything was perfect and beautiful and I think I will remember that night with remarkable fondness for the rest of my life.

I am so excited for the new year. I'm not much of one to get caught up in the feeling of renewal like some do at the beginning of the year, but I've just been in such a wonderful mood for the last few days that everything seems perfectly right right now. It's corny and cliche and I know it, but I feel like this new year has the potential to be one of the best of my life. Seven more months in Germany, my last fall semester at State living in a house with three people who I love. Being 21, being a senior, being happy. New experiences, new friends, new relationships, a new president who will actually start doing things right for our country. Right now, everything seems perfect. So please excuse me for my optimism; I can't help it.

My birthday is in three days. I miss my friends at home and I hope they know how much I love them.

Fast Silvester

So, Christmas turned out much better after I posted my last blog entry. Around 3, Kara (friend on my program who lives on the floor above) came by and invited Matt and me out with some other AYFers to go for a walk around the Seepark (the big lake park behind StuSie). It was the first sunny, beautiful day in a really long time, so the park was just lovely. Plus, it turns out there's a little Japanese garden with a waterfall back there, and we went up in the watch tower and got a decent view of the Seepark and the surroundings.

After that excursion, Matt and I headed to Vauban to have dinner with Becca and her family. She and her sister made some delicious chicken and veggies and such things. Becca got me two jars of Jif peanut butter and a big pack of mechanical pencils for Christmas, which may not sound good to you but is an absolutely wonderful gift for a poor international student like me. After dinner we uhh, went to the Irish pub in town and proceeded to rack up a 100+ Euro tab between 5 people. Then we came back and I called my family. New Christmas tradition, perhaps?

This past weekend Matt, Kara, her friend Noah and I made an impromptu visit to Köln (Cologne). We took a Schönes Wochenende ticket, which allows up to 5 people to travel on regional trains anywhere in Germany on either Saturday or Sunday for only 37 Euro... unfortunately, it took us 7.5 hours to get there. Saturday we checked in at our hostel, the hallway of which smelled like something indescribable (not in a good way) and then met up with my German friend Alex, who studies in Freiburg but is from Köln, and he showed us around a bit. On our way to the bridge over the Rhein we ran into an outdoor ice rink, so we went ice skating (turns out, Matt Hallock is an ice skating pro) and made fools of ourselves and banged up our ankles. For dinner we ate at a brewery that serves Kolsch, a type of beer brewed exclusively in Köln and talked politics and such while the crazy German waiter continuously brought us fresh beers (they are served in .2 liter glasses so they just keep bringing you new ones unless you ask them to stop). We finished off the night by walking way too far to a trendy little bar, where we all almost fell asleep because we had been up for 18+ hours at that point.


The next morning (if you can still call it morning) we were roused from sleep by one of the hostel workers entering our room to change the sheets. Turns out it was 11:40 and we were supposed to check out by noon... so we got dressed quickly and got out of there in time. We then headed to the Kölner Dom, which Alex had informed us the day before is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world... if you've ever seen it, you would believe it. Enormous, majestic and overwhelming. Since mass was still going on at the time we couldn't explore the inside much, but we did climb the 500 something stairs up the tower to get a pretty fantastic (and freezing) view of Köln (and quite the workout).

By the time we got down it was almost 1 and we had a train at 1:30ish, so we ate quickly, pretty much ran to the train station and took our 7 regional trains back to Freiburg. It's such a wonderful feeling to come back home after being on an exhausting trip somewhere.

Matt's train to Frankfurt leaves in about 2 hours. I'm really, really glad he came out here for the holidays and hope he had an enjoyable visit. And now I have a mattress for any future visitors... the offer is still open for anyone to come sleep on my floor...!

Silvester (New Years Eve) is on Wednesday. I'm having the few AYFers who are still in town over for a small party, during which we will climb up the Schlossberg and see the fireworks. I'm hoping it won't be too cold/rainy to do so, but the forecast says 40s and clear, so I'm pretty positive. It's kind of unbelievable to me that it's almost 2009 and that I've already been here for four months. Where does the time go?

Christmas and the last few months of my life

I realize that I haven't written in here in close to three months. I realize that the large majority of the time I've spent here so far has been undocumented in this blog, the blog I made specifically to document my year in Deutschland. But I'm horrible at these types of things, and by "these types of things" I don't just mean keeping up a blog, but also keeping in touch with people in general... as anyone who actually cares enough to follow this has already realized.

Part of the reason why I haven't written here for so long is because I began keeping a personal journal to write things that I couldn't (or rather, didn't want to) post online. But some of the things I talked about in there - such as my trip to Prague in October - certainly could've, and maybe should've, ended up here, I just didn't feel like posting them. That's another part of the reason - the time I do get to myself, I usually don't feel like posting in here. And, in all honesty, since the semester started, I have been much busier. It doesn't matter why I haven't written though, because I'm writing now, and hopefully will be writing in the future. No promises.

I could recap how my last few months have been, but it's kind of useless at this point. I've had classes, which have been hard (there's that whole thing about them being completely in German). I had a few minorly large bouts of homesickness in November, just as the program directors told us we would. I've gone out. I've gotten hopelessly lost in the Black Forest. I've continued to make friends, including a German or two. I've seen some really beautiful places - Prague, Munich, Zurich, Strasbourg. I've been really enjoying myself for the most part. But my life has fallen into a routine, and things have become normal, so that I no longer notice all of the time how beautiful Freiburg is, or how lucky I am to be here. Life is life.

And today is Christmas, or Weihnachten as the Germans call it, and it's almost 2:30 pm (note: I woke up at 1; I've been getting a lot of sleep lately), and I'm here, alone aside from Matt Hallock, my visitor of the last few weeks, in a 6 x 10 box, the sun shining in from my window. Only one of my nine floormates has been around for the last few days, and even she is gone at the moment. It's my first Christmas away from home, and while Christmas itself has never really meant much to me, the time with my family has, and I've never felt more disconnected from everyone I know than I do now.

Most of the time I forget that it's strange that I'm here, and everything just seems completely normal, and I don't think about the fact that I've left a life back home. But sometimes it comes back to me and I think, I haven't seen my mom or dad or brothers or friends for four months, I haven't been in East Lansing or Royal Oak or anywhere I'm used to for four months, I haven't driven a car or watched a TV (with the exception of the election) or gone shopping on a Sunday or played beer pong or been in someone's house or gotten a free refill at a restaurant or done anything with any of the people I love at home or any of those seemingly normal things for four months, and I'm not going to do any of those things for seven more months. And it's weird and sad and hard to think about and be okay with, but that's what I signed myself up for when I decided to come here, and I will and do live with it because I have to.

I don't want to make it sound like I'm not enjoying myself here, or that I regret the decision to come here, because that's completely untrue. But it's Christmas, and instead of being cuddled up in my living room with my mom and family, I'm sitting in my little room more than 4000 miles away from everyone.

Later Matt and I are going to head to Vauban (the other side of town, where Becca lives) to have dinner with her and her family, so my Christmas won't be completely void of activity. AND it turns out that the Irish pub is open at 6, so I may just end up sloshed and merry later tonight. I hope to get back in time to call my family around 11 (it'll be 5 pm there). See, it's not so bad.

Merry Christmas, everyone. I miss you and love you a lot.