(At the Marx/Engels statue in the former East Berlin)
We were asked that our last blog be our last thoughts on the trip. What our overall opinion was on the country. Things we liked, things we didn't like and so on. Your basic recap blog. I figured the best way to do this was to wait until the last minute to write the blog because then I've experienced as much of Germany as I can before writing what I think about it.
Right now, as I write this, it is 6:36PM in Magdeburg, Germany. Our train for Berlin leaves somewhere around 5AM tomorrow morning, so we're in the final countdown till take off on the trip back. I've been thinking a lot about this trip, and the things that I've accomplished and the things I didn't accomplish and the things that I wish I had more time for.
I realized, first and foremost, that I'm done with my undergraduate degree. I took my last exam yesterday of my undergraduate life, so I'm now officially a graduate of the University of South Carolina Upstate, and honestly, I think that's what my mind has been dwelling on the most. It's this sick, kind of unsettled feeling that most graduates experience when they realize that they're actually an adult now.
But really, I think this trip has helped me some with the "oh my god, I might pee myself" fear of the "real world." Imagine that you get dropped in this random country where you supposedly know the language they speak, but when you hear it, it feels like your first day of class on the subject. Imagine being able to think clearly, but the second you open your mouth to speak, the words get all jumbled up on your tongue, and then, when they don't, the person responds so quickly that you don't have time to process what was said before you have to invent an answer.
(Kel undoubtedly writing a blog post)
It's a little scary. I've taken class after class of German for 8 years. I've learned about the differences in German culture and American culture. I knew how to order food and answer a phone and count to ten. I knew how to be polite and what not to say to a teacher. I knew how to follow directions and conjugate verbs and what adjective endings to put on which words. I knew all of those things, but living it, breathing it, eating it... Nothing on this planet could have prepared me for that experience.
But now we're in the final stretch to getting back on the plane, and I'm thinking, "Has it been a month? Has it been that long already?" And the answer is always the same, "Why, yes, Kel, it has." And I made it. I know the train system like the back of my hand. I can tell you the humidity and wind speed with my finger or how long it'll take us to get from point A to point B down to the seconds.
I've asked over a million questions, got a thousand dirty looks from various people, ate hundreds of different things, walked tens of miles every day (or at least it felt like it sometimes), and this is just the ONE experience that will stay with me forever: I lived in Germany. For a month. And I survived.
I've experienced a wide range of emotions during this trip. Everything from happiness to anger, hyper to sad, but surviving Germany?
THAT feeling is one that I wouldn't give up for the world.
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