Week #28 and #29 in Germany

As I predicted in my last post, time has really been flying. I couldn't even remember if it had only been one week or two weeks since I last wrote, because everything's been kind of a blur. The two things that stood out about these past two weeks were my 100 day mark and my one year anniversary since the notification of my Fulbright.


Since I now have less than 100 days left here in Deutschland, I have been reflecting on what I think I'll miss most about living here. First and foremost I know I'll miss the people I have come to know and love, the once strangers who are now good friends, but that's what people always miss when they leave a home. Of course I'll miss the bourgeois of being able to say I live in a foreign country, but that's just something superficial that won't truly affect me. I'll definitely miss the chocolate and the bread, but there's generally a cuisine everywhere you go that can't quite be imitated anywhere else. While thinking of all this, I can't quite grasp what the little things are. What I mean is there are always little things you don't even consider in your daily life, which you don't even think of missing until they're gone. I think one of the things will be the bells. Everyday I hear church bells here. The closest I would get back home is the bells from Old Main, but those can only be heard on campus. I'll probably miss walking everywhere, especially with the view of the Black Forest. I can't think of what else right now, but I know I'll think of plenty of things after being back home in the U.S. for a week or two.


The one year anniversary of my Fulbright notification made me quite nostalgic. It also helped me realize how much I've changed, learned and grown in the past year. A year ago I'd never even heard of Offenburg. I didn't really understand the German school system. My German abilities were quite limited. I had no idea how to colloquially order a coffee, or how to handle bank transactions or how to understand Badisch. In realizing how much I've been able to expand my abilities, my ideas about life abroad have been reinforced. The only way to truly understand a culture is by immersion. Even though I can't possibly know all there is to know about German culture, I know more than someone who merely researches books instead of living life among Germans.