I think one of the most annoying sayings that people implement when giving advice is, “Life is full of change.” I honestly really don’t like hearing that. I know life is full of change, but it does not count in my book as explaining away everything and making it OK. OK, so yeah, maybe it is true and maybe acceptance is actually the best policy, but it still irritates me. Which is why it also kind of bugs me that I am about to use that phrase to sum up what has happened in the last 2.5 months of my blog-absenteeism.
As I and as all recent college grads know so well, life really is full of change, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. I’m personally more of a fan of unacknowledgement, which is why the fact that I would be leaving Elon on May 22nd did not fully sink in until about May 20th. Then it was bad news and I was a little bit of a mess. Well, the pace of change has barely slowed to take a breath since then and in the last 10 months I’ve moved away from Elon, back home, then to Bremen, Germany then again recently.
So, to bring everyone on to the same page, I’ll give you a quick ‘low down of what my last few months has looked like:
1. In January I finished my time at the University (thank goodness.) and wrapped up that phase of the program. (It’s worth repeating, thank goodness.)
2. At the end of January I stayed with my cousin Bethany, at her house with her family in Frankfurt. I had not seen Bethany for at least 10 years and now I have the pricelessly comforting knowledge that I have family in Germany.
3. In February I went to my last German class. Considering taking German for at least one day every week since the beginning of August, this is a HUGE deal. Finally I am set free! Though, when I go back to the US the first thing I’m going to do is sign myself up for German grammar and writing courses.
4. I had American visitors!! My mom came in January for 12 days and then my brother and great friend from Elon, Marisa, came in February. You all don’t have the attention span that could last long enough for me to explain how incredible it was to have these visitors.
5. I started my internship! As I think I have explained, with my program we are all obligated to do a five-month internship. I really can’t believe I’m already in the second month of it! I love my internship so far; it is teaching me so much about other fields in public relations and it is also giving me an excellent new taste for Bremen! (Literally and figuratively—I know have a very good idea of where the best chai teas are here.) I’m working for two self-employed woman, Frauke and Christel, who are friends and support each other in their respective work when possible. Frauke and I are planning a boat tour through the Bremen ports, which will take place in May, and for Christel I do fairly normal PR work in support of her cultural events within the city. The work is very interesting and I really enjoy it. The boat tour with Frauke combines city development, history, theater, music and more. The tour is extremely unique and I will definitely take a lot away from being involved with it. Considering I have already done two internships in the U.S. and am now a “college graduate,” I really wanted to use this internship time for something new and different. The last thing I wanted to do while in Germany was spend the majority of my day in an office. While I do spend a good amount of time indoors (which is OK because Bremen still is cloaked in gray 80 percent of the time), my time with my bosses includes so much other work and other people. It really is exactly how I wanted to use my internship time.
5. The biggest change of all: I moved. Yes, that’s right. I no longer live with a host family. The nitty gritty details behind my move make for a VERY long story, but I am so happy to have moved. To be perfectly clear: I did not move because I did not get along well with my host family. Quite the opposite, actually. I had a very nice relationship with my host mom and when I was thinking about moving, I thought a long time about the decision because of that. I did, ultimately, decide a move would be worth trying to get permission for. My program finally agreed, which was only made possible because my internship is so event-oriented and requires me so often to be available in the evening to work. Where I lived was a 35 or more minute transit into or out of the city center, which was fine on normal occasions, but the public transportation stops running at 12:30am five out of the seven days of the week. So, with the encouragement and help on my bosses, just two weeks after looking at the most perfect apartment I was moving in with the help of some friends. In Germany most young people live in what is called a “WG,” which, when translated, stands for “living community.” This is just a fancy name for a shared apartment. I live with two other 23 year olds who did not know each other until they lived together (the norm among WGs) and maintain their own schedules. It is really wonderful, though, because I am again in an atmosphere I feel completely at ease in: one with young people living their own life and doing things their own way. This is, of course, the atmosphere I have lived in for the last four years and I feel truly liberated to again be in this situation. What makes it 100 times better, though, is that I can walk within 20/25 minutes to almost anywhere I’d want to be and since I have a bike I can get anywhere even more quickly. I am no longer bonded by the tram and buses. Freedom tastes oh, so sweet.
Of course lots of little things happen to me every day and changes are going on constantly. The weather is finally waking from its slumber and I even ventured outside today without a coat. People are again returning in hoards to the banks of the Weser River and enjoying a beer, pizza or simply sunbathing. I now live a 10 minute walk from the Weser and I, too, am enjoying its banks through morning runs (yes, I am actually disciplining myself to do this! Trust me, I’m more surprised than you!) or afternoon walks. It is pure pleasure. And, of course, my German is constantly changing and almost always progressing (there are moments where I am convinced I am digressing), and I am able to talk about more and more subjects. There are still many, many, challenges for me in German and being at my internship has required a whole new vocabulary, but I am proud to say and I should not deny that my German is improving. I am very proud of how far I have come, but sometimes still feel daunted by how much more I could learn. That is, however, the nature of any language, so I have to constantly remind myself not to be too hard on myself!
In officially less than four months I will be back in the United States and I honestly can’t quite describe how that feels. Four months is longer than I was in Ireland two years ago and as the last 7 months has shown me, a lot more can change. Moving back to the US will hold even more changes, but for now I am focusing on enjoying how my world in Bremen changes before my eyes and do my best to keep up with it and enjoy.
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