The Beginning of the End

Today is the last Sunday of our semester. In a week, three of the other students, Chris, Nattie, and Phillip, will already be back home in the United States. The rest of us will still be in Europe, but we will be scattered throughout Europe rather than together in Heidelberg. I cannot believe the semester is coming to a close. In preparation for coming to Germany I heard so many times that I would change and learn a lot about myself. Looking back at the semester and everything I have experienced, I cannot honestly say that I have learned anything new about myself or God, and I don't feel that I have changed, which is a bit frustrating. I was talking to my roommate about this, and she said that with experiences like this, you don't usually realize changes or new things about yourself until you get back to your own culture and normal context. It makes going home that much more anxiety-ridden. I'm already nervous about the adjust back to small-town American culture. I don't expect it will be very easy for me to quickly readjust after being in Europe for almost four months.

Today we had the first of our final farewells. There is a restaurant that we discovered on our first Sunday here called La Boheme, and that night we met Niko, one of the waiters, who has become a friend over the course of the semester. La Boheme became our Sunday night choice for dinner, since that is the night Niko works, and we got to know him pretty well. Tonight was our last Sunday night at La Boheme, and our final farewell to Niko. He came to our concert last night, and told us that tonight he would be working, but then is going to Hamburg for a few days, so tonight would be our last chance to see him. When we were getting ready to leave, he gave us a hopeful farewell, saying, "And now I will leave you not with the American way of saying good-bye, because it is a bit negative, but instead I will say 'auf wiedersehen,' because it means we will see each other again in the future." I much prefer farewells this way. I know that in the coming week we will have several more auf wiedersehens, as we say goodbye to other people we have grown accustomed to seeing regularly.

Peace and Blessings,
Suzannah