The Happiest Life (Aufwiedersehen Deutschland)

'For the happiest life, days should be rigorously planned, nights left open to chance.'

Mignon McLaughlin

'I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.'
E. B. White

‘When offered something, always say yes, because you may never be faced with the same opportunity again’

Unknown

Speicherstadt in Hamburg

           These three quotes from early in my year are all I could really use to describe my methods and my experience. This is what I have been living by for the past 300 days in Germany. Now, I am not only facing the final stretch, but I have my foot on the finish line. It’s too late to turn back or to slow down. My time in Germany is over. School is winding down, the last weekend I have is about to come and then it ends in a series of my least favorite thing, ‘Goodbyes’. Now, it’s all just saying goodbye, to a project and a life which I have had so little time to build up. Then, it is time to enter back into a world which I am familiar with, but which has changed since I left. And even if my year is over, my exchange experience is not, and as every exchange student will tell you, the hardest part is still to come for me, and that is returning and starting over in an old world. But enough for now about my world of two waves colliding into each other around me, because I have a lot of great stuff to write about since the last time that I posted, which seems like just yesterday, even if I have done more than some people do in a year.

Hamburg Alster

           When I last wrote in here it was the beginning of May and I was in a phase where I was looking at my last two months on the calendar with excitement, and looking forward to all of the great things that I had planned. The good news is that I didn’t just get to do all of what I planned, but I got to do more than I had planned! The bad news is that there is still so much stuff that I would love to do and love to see. But first the major stuff that I did, in order of how they happened;

            My first few weeks in May were full of small, single events, like meeting with friends to see a movie of hang out in town, of course my Water polo practices and games every week, and going to Phantasialand, an amusement park, with Trym and the Balds. I had finally reached the point where my whole week was full, and my schedule was planned for every day. It was a full, completed life, with real friends, and a great family. Then, because of the well timed holidays at the end of the year, we had three, four day weekends, which I used to the fullest extent that I could. The first one, ‘Christi Himmelfahrt’, I spent in a fantastic, spontaneous trip to Hamburg, to visit family friends. It was my fifth time in Hamburg, but the first time that I really got a great feel for the city. Not only did I get to roam the city more and do more sight seeing, but I had a rare Hamburg experience, in that I was finally there with good weather; The first weekend where it was true summer. Everybody was outside, sitting in the parks, grilling, playing soccer, and just enjoying the city. The first night I was there I got to go to the Alster, one of the two big rivers that flow through Hamburg, and I got to see a once a year event, the ‘Japanischer Kirschbluttenfest’, which was a big, beautiful event with lots of people gathering to see the fireworks which were shot off of a boat for about a half an hour. It happened to be on the same day as Fathers Day here in Germany, which is not really a Fathers Day like we have it in America. It is more of an excuse for men, both young and old, fathers and non-fathers, to walk around all day with a barrel of beer and just get drunk. One German explained it to me as more of a celebration of being ‘able’ to be a father :) . I was able to walk around one of the richest and nicest parts of Hamburg, though I quickly discovered that almost every part of Hamburg is expensive and nice. The next day, we went through Hamburg, looked at an old tunnel, the Elb Tunnel, which goes under the Elbe, the other major River in Hamburg. Hamburg actually has more bridges than any other city in the world. It has more bridges than Amsterdam and Venice put together. After looking at the harbor and seeing the German horse jumping derby, I eventually had to go back to Wuppertal. It took twice as much time as planned to get home on that Sunday, because my train didn’t end up coming. It happened to be a train which was already full, with no more reservations possible. All of those people, including myself, started jumping into any train heading our direction just to get home, but every other train was just as full as ours would have been. I ended up changing trains four times, with one three hour stretch of just standing and being squished, which was something I never want to have to do again. To make it worse, it was so warm that everybody was sweating a ton, and Germans are not very good at dealing with heat. I finally made it home late at night, and then it was off to school in the morning. That whole next week was full of final exams, meeting with friends, and Water polo games.

Texel, North Sea, Holland

Exchange students from around the world, all on their way back home soon :(

Then on Friday the Balds and I left as soon as school was over to drive up to the North Sea, onto an Island in Holland, called Texel. We had a long weekend off school, and this was possibly going to be our last weekend all together so we, just like many others do in Germany, head directly for the shore to take advantage of the free time. We had a fantastic weekend, full of sightseeing, walks on the beach, sun bathing (and burning :/ ) and even some swimming! It was my first time in Holland which then became the eighth country of my exchange year. Later in the week I also got to go to Venlo in Holland which is on the border to Germany, with my aunt. I didn’t have school because in Germany, instead of substitute teachers, we just have no class in that period, and both of my classes got dropped, so I didn’t have to go to school :) . We had a great time at the Floriade, which is a garden expo which only happens every ten years in a different Dutch city. The next weekend was no break for me, because I had my AFS End of Stay in the Youth Hostel in a town called Velbert. It was so nice to see these exchange students from all over the world who have become some of my best friends, and we really were a sort of family. It was hard to say goodbye, because we all inevitably knew that we could never all see each other again, due not exclusively but mainly to the fact that we all live in different corners of the earth. 

Le Paris :)

After some wonderful sleepless nights that weekend I was just about ready to sleep for a month, but no rest for the wicked; it was off to Paris. We had another long weekend and once again I was making the most of my time, taking an overnight bus to Paris with about 65 AFS exchange students. I had been to Paris in December with Ivan and I loved it so much, that it was worth it for me to go back, even if it was only for one day. After an awesome day of running around exploring the city, we took the bus back overnight, arriving at 4 in the morning. I pretty much hadn’t slept a wink for two days, and when we arrived I had to take two trains and a bus, with a twenty minute walk in the sunrise to finally arrive at the house at 6:30 in the morning, where I promptly crashed on my bed, fully clothed. Once I woke up I ate breakfast and was off to Meschede in the Sauerland, a mountainous, woodsy region of my state in Germany. I took the train there, to be picked up by my wonderful sister Caroline and my Uncle. After nine months I had been reunited a little bit early with my sister! A relative of ours was getting married so we all got nice and dressed up for her wedding, along with about 500 others, half of which were British relatives of the Groom. After a few more nights of only a little sleep, Caroline and I drove back to Wuppertal, where she then stayed with my Aunt for two days. She got to see where I have spent my year and she got to go to the famous Wuppertal Zoo, which even I have never done!

Erich Honnecker and Leonid Brezhnev in their quick Communist kiss. A mural from a picture, at the East Side Gallery in Berlin

Once she left it was no time off for me, because the next day I took a train to Berlin to spend a week with 50 Americans at our CBYX End-of-Stay camp. My scholarship program, the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange, which sponsors 250 kids from America to do a year long exchange in Germany, as well as 250 Germans to America, brings all of the scholarship recipients together at the end of the year, when they are invited to the German Bundestag. The Bundestag is the German Congress, and they invited us to not only sit in on one of their sessions, but we were even allowed to have a conference with some leaders and Bundestag representatives, including the president of the Bundestag and the Vice-Chancellor of Germany. We were allowed to ask questions about anything from financial issues in the Euro Zone, immigration in Germany, the problems in the Middle East, and reunification between the east and west in Germany. After the conference and a lunch in the Reichstag Building, we were invited to the American Embassy to chill with the Ambassador from the United States, who also happens to be from Massachusetts :) . You would think that an Embassy would be boring, but it was not at all. When we arrived, once we got through the security check we had American sodas, chocolates, snacks, and a music play list. We all got to chill on the grass of the courtyard, and we were all just chatting with other exchange students about everyone’s experience in Germany. We danced, talked to foreign officers, and just had a chill time in the walled in patch of America in a bottle. After traveling the city, staying up all night with the Americans, watching Germany kick butt in soccer :) and reflecting on our year, we were all dead tired, and on our way home. Berlin is a refreshing type of city, and not like any other German city that I have seen. With 3.5 million people, it is the only moderately large city in Germany, but it is like no other city that I have ever seen. It is full of history, but so much of it is new. It is not spread out, but not built up like Frankfurt. It is a clash of old and new, just like Germany as a whole.

The Ambassador from the United States to Germany, giving all of the CBYXers a quick speech in the Embassy Courtyard next to the Brandenburger Tor

After the first goal for Germany in the quarterfinals against Greece

          

During the game against Italy, what it looks like from afar. 

           Now the big trips around Europe are over, and it’s down to the last few days in Germany. Now, I am focusing on getting my last few days planned and full, surrounded by the people I care about, and doing the things that I love. Whether it’s grilling with friends or watching Germany play in the European Cup I am doing nothing but enjoying my time and trying my hardest not to think that I am right at the end. Only people who have done an exchange year can understand the feeling of building up friendships and a whole new life, just to all of a sudden be sent back into an old place and old time, and into your future. If my German or exchange student friends are reading this, I want to thank you all, I love you, and you have made my year the best of my life. Es war einfach unnormal wie wohl ich mich hier gefühlt habe. Ich kann es einfach immer noch nicht begreifen dass ich raus gezogen werde mit einem Flug zurück, und damit mein Leben hier verliere. Abschied ist bitter. Ich hoffe ihr vergisst mich nicht, weil ich werde euch nie vergessen. Das beste Jahr meines Lebens. Ich muss euch nochmal danken, weil ihr habt mir geholfen, mit mir geredet, und mir begleitet, und sowas hätte ich nie erwartet. Ich liebe euch!

Wuppertal 2012. 

In Deutschland bin ich zuhause <3