June 19th, 2009
Closing Remarks
I’ve had a great time during the last five months. Spending a semester abroad was absolutely the right decision for me. And Berlin was a fantastic place to do it. It’s nice when life works out like that.
That said, there was never any climactic, life-changing moment to the experience. No holy-crap-the-course-of-my-life-has-been-permanently-altered moment. Erika Moen, for instance, had previously believed herself to be a lesbian, until she met a charming British man during her semester in France. They were married last fall.
I always think there’s going to be this indefinable “something more” to life. But then when it comes down to it, I prefer my habits and routines and normalcy.
Hello again, Northfield.
June 19th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Damn. Yeah…
also, if you’re going to be in “the cities” this weekend let me know. 612 270 1368
June 20th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Sweet! I was actually in St Paul (near Macalester) last night for a friend’s party, but I’m bound to go up there again soon. I hope you’re feeling less hospitalized.
June 24th, 2009 at 2:22 am
Damn. That’s exactly how I felt when I lived in Bremen for five months. Nothing really climactic happened, but I would still call it life-changing. I didn’t really realize it at first–I think partly because I was so new to travel, and I was missing home for so much of that time. A year later I’m spending the summer in Germany again, and I finally realized what the difference is. I could live here. There’s nothing special or magical about one place or the other, and now that I’ve gotten over the difficult introductory period, I’ve been able to take an evenhanded look at it and realize that if I found a career opportunity here, I could live comfortably in Germany. Which is a very good thing to know about oneself.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Hmm…yeah, maybe I’ll feel the effects of that semester more after some time passes.
I applaud you for being able to live abroad permanently; I don’t think I could do it. You’re right; that’s a really important thing to know about yourself, either way. Presumably your German is better than mine–the language barrier is definitely a big part of it.
I hope summer’s beautiful over there right now!