The Home Stretch

According to the countdown on my computer, I have 39 days left in Germany before it's time for me to get on a plane and go back to the States. People on both sides of the pond keep asking me how I feel about it, and I can honestly say that I'm split about 60/40. I am definitely more excited to return home than I am to stay here, but leaving Germany is not going to be an easy thing to do.

Life in Germany has pretty much slowed to the dull pace that frequent studying for classes dictates. Since our summer semester is shorter than the winter semester, the amount of work we have to get done is much greater (or at least it seems that way) than it did before. I have no time to travel if I'm going to keep up with classes, which means my last month in Germany looks like it's going to be pretty low-key (and by low-key I mean I'm pretty much just going to be working). Which is fine with me, because once I get back home life is going to quickly gain back up to breakneck American speed.

Whenever I talk about wanting to come home, people keep telling me to enjoy the time that I have left here and make the most of it, to not think about home. Of course I'm trying to enjoy my time, but it's much easier said than done. If I was on vacation, I would certainly be trying to squeeze the most out of my last days. But this is not a vacation. I live here, and have for 10 months already. It's not a huge deal. And frankly, Tübingen is getting boring. I cannot imagine having to spend 4-6 years in this town at this university. Tübingen is such a weird mix of old and new that after a while its character begins to grate on you. It's this medieval town with all the great old architecture and a fascinating Altstadt, but the university livens it up too much. The result is that you feel like there's no real equilibrium. Tübingen doesn't seem to be able to make up its mind whether it's got the soul of a big, young city or a small, traditional village.

I think that I would much rather be in a small, isolated village or in a huge, interconnected metropolis than somewhere in between. This is probably why I like visiting Matze's family in their small village in Niedersachsen and why I prefer Seattle over Tacoma.

The truth is that, for now, I am done being in Europe. You know that you're "done' with Europe for the time being when a castle on a hill is just another big hunk of stone and the medieval city you live in no longer excites you the way that it did before. After a while cobblestone ceases to be fascinating and starts to be irritating.

It's interesting how living in a foreign country makes you appreciate your own country and culture so much more. I feel comfortable in German culture and with the German language, but it's nowhere near the comfort of my American homeland. Germany is great in its own way - but it's different. After a while, the novelty wears off and you begin to miss your own culture, language, and country not because they're better in some way, but because they're different.

And so I find myself counting the days, knowing that, inevitably, the departure date will sneak up on me faster than I know and that I will find myself doing things "for the last time" here with a deep sense of sadness. I don't think there's any way around that. It will be bittersweet to board that plane, take off, and then sit back and spend 13 hours reflecting on what it is that I have done this year, what I have seen, and who I have become.