Adventuring Impossible: Smooshie 04-06-2011

Life has continued on in a fairly stable pattern this past week or so. School is getting much more fast paced, as the end of the semester is rushing headlong towards us. I can’t believe in a month, I will be home.

As always in life, things come up that we don’t expect and that ticket I had to buy in order to get back to Quedlinburg from Milan caused me to cancel my trip to Auschwitz. There is a small comfort, as a class we are going to a camp outside of Quedlinburg, and I will have at least seen one. I realize it is a depressing thing to want to see, but it was a large piece of a major time in world history. It also is the remnant of a lesson we still need to be reminded of. People are people. They are ALL deserving of the same things.

Aside from negative news, I have decided what I am going to do for Easter. I am going to go to Thale and spend the weekend in the woods. I feel the need for quiet and solitude. There is a hostel in Thale that the school stays in during the Summer semester, and I am going to leave here Saturday morning, and stay until Monday in the early afternoon and just wander the hiking trails. It should be pretty relaxing, which I need.

So many things have happened this semester. Four months ago, I would have laughed if I had been told what would happen this semester. Four months ago I was sitting on my couch asking all sorts of “what if” questions. What if I miss a flight? What if they lose my luggage? What if, what if, what if… Well, I did miss a flight, they did lose my luggage, rioting broke out in Egypt, I was evacuated from the Middle East by the US embassy, I switched programs and started this new one three weeks into it, I have traveled all around Germany, I did a ten day tour of Italy, next weekend, I am going to Prague, and it has been amazing!

There are so many things I want to change about my life back home. I want to be healthier and I mean that in so many ways other than just physically. I actually have a pretty good idea of the things I want in my life now that I have had time to breathe and to think about them. Going abroad has been the most incredible experience I can imagine having. It’s eye opening to see how different the American culture is from the Egyptian and European culture. To take that even further, from the German culture.

I want to slow life down. Germans get just as much done as Americans and they still enjoy their lives. That’s my lesson.

I don’t know what I would have done if the rioting in Egypt had made it so I had to go home. If my scholarships had somehow been canceled. Every single day I experience gratitude for Jennifer and the Gilman Scholarship fund for helping me get to Germany and being there for any needs I had in the process. I am so grateful for Texas Tech’s Study Abroad office. Ryan, Elizabeth, and Sandy did and are still doing so much for me. Texas Tech in general for getting me the travel grant that allowed me to buy warmer clothes, eat while I was in Frankfurt, cover the cost of my plane tickets, and to get from Frankfurt to Quedlinburg. Frau Dr. Mclain and Frau Merchant for taking on the extra work of a student who was three weeks behind the other. They did a good job, because I am sitting on a solid B or higher.

I am also so so grateful for my support system back home. Melynda, for taking spectacular care of our kids and just being so supportive of me when it was up in the air what I was going to do after Cairo. All my friends (too many to list because I don’t want to leave anyone out) for reading my blog, looking at my pictures, talking to me when our computer time lined up, but mostly just for letting me know I am missed and that for the first time in my life, I have a support network. It means so much to me.

I am also immeasurably grateful to my host family. Jutta, who I would just love to have an extra mom in the states…who doesn’t need two awesome moms? Klaus, who is SO helpful when I am in need of a study partner and who introduced me to German theatre. One of the first things I experienced in Quedlinburg was laughter thanks to him. Kay, just because it reminded me of how awesome and valuable little brothers are. I even appreciate the cat, because she slept with me my first night…and cats can sense evil so she was either protecting me, or by sleeping with me, protecting everyone around me… Smile The first thing I decided when studying abroad became a reality was that I wasn’t going to stay with a host family. I thought it would be terribly awkward and I didn’t want to be an imposition. I am so glad things worked out where I had to. I am a better person for it.