3...2...1... lift off

3 days of Germany left to go. Only 3.

I've been up to quite a bit- a trip to Ireland, a couple days up north around Paderborn to see my dear Peter and Traudel again, and all of the small prep things that come with a big move. In my head, I was picturing my final weekend here being a big vacation, time to meander about and think and soak up the German-ness of it all, all the time in the world for friends, and so on. It is never like that though. But it's still good.

Ireland was a bit of a shock. I felt like since I was traveling, I shouldn't have been able to read or aptly communicate, and my first day around Ireland I was relatively shy and completely bewildered by the cheeriness of the customer service everywhere. I mean, I paid for a coffee and the transaction went something like this:

"2,50 dear"

i give her exactly 2,50

"brilliant! thank you, enjoy!"

I mean, what the hell is that?! I am more accustomed to feeling like I'm in the way and in the wrong when I pay. But all of a sudden in Ireland I'm brilliant?! Pssaahhhhh howdoievendealwiththat?! And then I remembered, oh yeah, this happens and it's pleasant. How lovely.

People keep asking me if it is bittersweet to be leaving. It's not really. What makes a place isn't all the beer, chocolate, landscapes... it's the people. And though I'll miss all of the other goodies one finds in Germany, the only thing that makes this move bittersweet are the people I've come to know and love this year.

Marius, Anja, Micha, Nadja, Bettina, Janine, Ginny, Shane, Braulio, Carola, Peter and Traudel... you all in different ways made my year in Germany an absolute success, and it's been a privilege to know you this year. Truly.

But that's why we have technology. No one is really ever that far away.

Oh gosh, I have to go de-register myself from Mainz before the Bürgeramt closes in an hour! Crap! That's all for now. What a random post.

Me at Cliffs of Moher

I was just in Ireland! It was so lovely... but I'm off to Northern Germany for the night, so I'll have to elaborate a bit later.

America the Beautiful

HaPpY 4th of JuLy!

The index cards

I am in ultimate packing mode here in Germany, since my time is nearly up, and I'll be on an airplane heading West before I know it. Most everything is already packed up, minus the truckload of books I've managed to accumulate over the last year. They're heavy! I should probably just leave most of them here, but parting with a book is sometimes kinda hard for me.

Everything is off my walls, leaving them sad and plain. And the only time that I got a little teary during the whole packing up process was when I took down all of the things that I'd taped up all over my place when I got to Mainz in a determined effort to keep learning German. My formal language training was only 2 months long, and it was only during that time that I had a chance to try to figure out how to properly construct sentences in German. Since October, it's just been a learn-as-you-go sort of operation, picking up a bit of "Umgangssprache" and just taking my best shot in the dark when it comes to using the proper article and coordinating adjective ending. Once I'd moved in and organized stuff on my shelves, I labeled everything. Red ink for the feminine article "die", blue ink for the masculine article "der", green for the neutral "das", and yellow for plural. With verbs, I tried to label if they were used with a certain preposition and whether the noun that followed should be in nominative, accusative, or dative case.

Those are some of the labels I took down from around my room. It made me get a little teary to do so because these silly little pieces of paper are what my year was all about. 12 months gone in the blink of an eye. The majority of moments that I had here were big challenges. There were definitely times that I wanted to give up- times that I had to pull myself up by my bootstraps and just keep on going. It's funny how being in the thick of something difficult can be so tiring, but when you finally emerge on the other side and see what you're capable of, the sun shines even brighter. Ok ok, the sun doesn't shine all too often here, but you know what I mean...