The End

Well its 12:00 AM on June 21st. In just over 12 hours I'll be on a plane coming back home after being here in England just shy of 6 months.

On the one hand, I am more than ready to go home. I want to watch a television set. I want to drive a car. I want to buy things have them NOT cost twice as much (i.e. I am excited for the dollar). And I want to see friends and family that I haven't seen for 6 months or even a year.

On the other hand, where did 6 months go? With all my pictures taken down from my wall and the shelves conspicuously bare, my room is reminiscent of the first night that I got here, and it doesn't seem that long ago. Sure, the sun sets at 9:00 instead of 4:00 but it's still raining outside (seriously, it is) and I am not quite convinced that 6 months have passed.

This experience has been both suprising and wonderful but at the same time has had some disappointments. Disappointments-wise, I really don't feel like my education has been enhanced by this experience. I mean study abroad is supposed to have some element of study and the English way of learning doesn't really fit my idea of an education. I don't really feel like I learned much of anything in my classes and my research internship was a joke. I was kind of looking forward to that since I hadn't participated in any kind of research before. And if that is what it's like, then I'm glad not to have subjected myself to it before. But perhaps my experience was just an anomaly.

However, there has been so much more to this than learning (let's not lie, very little of this has had to do with learning). The people I have met have been extraordinary. I never thought I would be having 3-4 hour long, home cooked meals, with 6 other American's while I was over here. My initial disappointment of living with Americans instead of British students quickly evaporated when I realized that it didn't matter that they weren't British because they were fabulous and that it would be easier to see them if they didn't live an ocean away. Even though the first week or so was extremely lonely here (I blame the sun setting at 4), the friendships quickly flourished and true happiness soon followed. And not to sound corny, but they felt like a family away from home. It feels good to know that even in a random foreign country, I can make friends and put down roots. But at the same time, it sucks because those ties have to be severed as we go back to our respective homes. As I've sat by my window, putting up my pictures from my most recent travels, I've watched people slowly trickle away. A knock every once in a while announces another departure, and now there are few people left. I've enjoyed these final few days here but I also wish I had been one of the first people to leave. It's always easier to leave than to be left.

Another high point? Well who can forget the travelling? I have taken Europe by storm and it was amazing. I was lucky enough to travel for a month over spring break and then doing it again at the end of summer term was unfathomable. I'm still not quite over the travel-fatigue though, so I can't quite distance myself enough to truly write about that experience. I'll just say it was exhausting, but phenomenal.

That doesn't even mention the opportunity to actually live in another country. There will always be other opportunities to travel, but to spend 6 months living somewhere is usually a once in a lifetime chance. I really feel like I have a home here. It's just not a place that I am visiting, it's a place that I live. I know the customs, I know the places, I know the pebbly beach of Brighton. I do feel fully integrated into the British culture (despite all these silly Americans I hang out with) which was one of my initial goals of studying abroad. It'll be hard for me to know go back to writing the date with the month first instead of the day, saying thanks instead of cheers, and having cents instead of p's. England is a fun place. I like life here.

So that's it. I'm not particularly sad or teary to be leaving since I do have so much to look forward to back in the States, but I do feel...empty. I guess just knowing that soon enough this will all be a memory and the life I've worked hard to establish here will be obsolete. And hopefully with enough determination on all of our parts, even though we'll be gone from England, those people who mean a lot to me will maintain contact and I have faith that we'll all see each other again.

Thanks to those people who've read this. I would have written it for myself if that was the case, but I do like having an audience. Keeps me on my toes. And as the title of this entry implies, goodbye.

THE END.

Pictures: Munich

Little did we know when we arrived in Munich that such festivities for its 850th birthday would be going on.

Tours of Fraukirche.

Weird skull thing in Fraukirche.

So many people celebrating!

We found a peaceful little garden.

Our response to the amount of people.

King Ludwig!

Yes people surf in Munich. Yes it is in a river.

See Spot surf. Surf Spot, surf.

New Town Hall.

With her "beer". Don't be fooled, it's really cider.

Best dessert ever. We don't know what it was, but it was amazing.

A more somber day, the entrance to Dachau.

"Arbeit macht frei". Work will make you free. I disagree.

Roll call square.

"Our last hope- Hitler". Unbelievable.

Eerie memorial.

Site of the former barracks.

Fences.

Memorial to the unknown prisoner.

The next day was our walking tour. It was wet and cold.

Glockenspiel. Almost as silly as the Astronomical Clock in Prague.

The "Devil's" footprint. Really that of the architect, though.

St. Mary's column.

Maypole over the market.

Hofbrauhaus...to be revisted later.

What does one do with their extra euros? Hmm....

Bavarian flags painted on the ceiling of the Hofbrauhaus to cover up the swastikas that used to be there.

We didn't get beer and therefore cannot have the typical photograph with a liter stein in our hand so the menu had to suffice.

The end of Europe pictures!!!

Pictures: Salzburg

Our own hotel room in Salzburg. What a luxury.

Itty bitty elevator, though.

Heading to the city center.

And the lovely, old, historical city center is filled with a FANZONE. Great.

Old cemetary with wrought iron gravestones.

Just a restaurant you might think?

But no, it was founded in 803. Charlemagne wrote about this restaurant.

Pretty little street with wrought iron signs.

Pigeons and a church play in the puddle.

Mirabell gardens. And where the Von Trapp children lined up at the end of do-re-mi.

Mozart's birthplace.

Into the hermitic monk's cave/hillside dwellings.

Chapel inside the hill.

The monks had lovely views, though.

Practicing her hermitic monk skills.

The Sound of Music tour commences. I still can't believe I let my sister talk me into this.

Lake where the children fell in.

16 going on 17 gazebo.

Pretty lake district. I think this is Lake Wolfgang. Absolutely gorgeous scenery.

Cheesy tourist bus.

Church where Maria and the Captain got married.

Exterior of the church. Not used in the movie, but still pretty.