The Final Days in Germany

---

The final days in Germany…
You’da thunk I’d be sad or something. And actually, I was, but I was so many other things, too, (tired, stressed, happy,) that the only emotion that actually registered was exhaustion.
See, fate set it up so that my final projects were all scrunched in at the end of the semester, just exactly as I predicted (sloth-paced projects at the beginning were bound to give way to highway-paced ones by the end). But the real kicker of a setup was the final presentation of the placemat project: Wake up on Tuesday at 3am, so I can be down at school with my presentation and model by 4am, then the bus can leave on time to drive us all to Minden, 5 hours north of Coburg, where we can all present our projects *to the Melitta representatives,* *IN GERMAN* (that’s where I started to break a sweat), then get back on the bus in the afternoon in hopes of being home about 9:30 or 10pm (that didn’t happen - it was 11:30 when I got back to my dorm room), then I can pack up my luggage, which I haven’t done yet because I’ve been busy doing the homework, and I have to meet my ride at 9:30 the next morning (Wednesday) so I can catch all my trains and planes to go back to Kansas again.
Phew.
And somehow I did it. Even though I slept through the alarm on Tuesday (because I magically had time to get in a nap in my bed), Bara woke me up with a phone call, and the bus waited for me. Even though a welcome surprise of friends knocked on my door to give me an impromptu goodbye party while I was packing. Even though I didn’t clean my dorm room properly for checkout, but it ended up being alright, because for a small fee the dorm people could do it for me. Even though I didn’t realize until I was at the gate for my plane in Frankfurt, my luggage checked and only my iPod to protect me, that I was flying standby (that’s a story by itself). Even though all of that, something wanted me to return to Chicago at 11pm local time on August 3rd, 2005 and meet once again with John, who whisked me away on his white… er, silver, horsey-kind-of-looking station wagon to Kansas City, and the life I’d left almost 6 months prior.
-FIN-

---

Photos

I'm home but the pictures aren't
I will be getting pictures from my friends in Germany soon ...I hope! Meanwhile, I've been putting off posting the final blog because of it. I've been back for a while now (as you can tell from the post date), so I thought I'd let everyone know. -r

Comments

[Paul W]

Welcome back
Glad you made it back, looking forward to the stories .....P