Final days in Berlin

By the time I am writing this blog, I have exactly two weeks left in Germany. I am a weird mixture of so excited to go home and incredibly sad that I am going to be leaving Germany. I am rushing to do all the last-minute things I want to do one last time before I leave. I am going to monuments, having picnics in parks and beaches, and eating a ton of Döner. There is so much I am going to bring with me back to America. The thing I am the most proud of is how much more confident I have become with my German and how independent of a person I have become. Spending 12 hours a week in a classroom speaking just German every week has most definitely improved my confidence in speaking German. I’ve also written more in German than I have ever before, which has definitely made it much easier for me to process what I want to say in German. I am also much more independent because I did some solo traveling. I went to Salzburg, Austria, and Paris, so I have definitely put myself out there and made some great memories because of that. If I could do something differently, I would have definitely explored more of Germany itself. I 100% want to come back and go to a bunch of different places in Germany. I would have also put myself out there more with the German students. They kept the study-abroad students extremely separated from the normal German students, so I wish I would have put myself out there to make some German friends. There are a lot of things I want to incorporate into my life back in America. I don’t think I can give up German breakfasts. The meat and cheese and bread are great and way better than my previous habit of just eating sugary foods for breakfast. Traveling around different countries has also made me realize that there is so much in the United States that I have never seen. People would mention so many cities in the U.S. and ask me what they are like there, and all I could say was I didn’t know because I’ve never been there. I’ve gone to a handful of states in the U.S., but I haven’t really been to the places I really want to go to, and there isn’t really any good reason as to why not. When people hear of all the places you have to go to in your life, they are almost all in Europe, but there is so much back at home that I have never seen. I have never seen the mountains in Colorado or Montana or been to so many places with beautiful nature. I want to do much more exploring and see new places in the U.S. I am extremely thankful for my time in Germany, though. I am so grateful for the friends I made and the memories I now have. Making friends in an environment that could feel really hostile in the beginning at times was a huge worry of mine. I’m so glad God blessed me with the friends I made, so I could really make the most out of this experience. I’m also glad that I had a semester to relax and not be quite as busy as I normally would be. And let’s be honest, being able to listen to Netflix in German was super cool! I think it was an enormous blessing to have a host that spoke Spanish because it made the beginning of being in Germany much easier to adjust to. It also enabled me almost never to speak English with my host. The advice I would give to future semester abroad students would be to be ready to put yourself out there. Being in a place where there is a language barrier is extremely difficult, but the more you step outside your comfort zone, the more you will learn. I’ve learned so much while I have been in Germany, and I would love for others to have a great experience or even better than I did!

Picture 1: This is my first sight of the Eiffel Tower in Person.

Picture 2: This is a picture from Austria of the Alps. (The hills were alive with the sound of music!)

Picture 3: These are five people I spontaneously met in Paris and spent the day with!