Wir Haben Uns Lang Nicht Mehr Gesehen. (Zu Lang, Baby. Zu Lang.)

I have now been back in the United States for a year - and, let me tell you, the last year has been quite the emotional rollercoaster. As predicted, the first few weeks back in the States were wonderful. I loved seeing all of my friends and family again, skating at the WPIA, and eating all the foods I had missed while in Germany. But, alas, the renewed novelty soon wore off….

When Mizzou’s fall semester began, things started going down hill. I felt extremely disconnected from everyone. It seemed like nobody truly understood what I had experienced and how I had changed. I realized that many of my fellow CSD students had all become much closer to one another while I was away. After a professor had finished lecture one day, I caught myself an inch away from knocking on the desk. (A customary sign of appreciation in German universities- similar to clapping.) I found that I was actually BOTHERED by everyone just packing up and leaving without any form of thanks given to the professors. It seemed downright rude after attending Uni in Germany.

Early on, I tried to become friends with a few of the German exchange students at Mizzou; but it soon became apparent that they just wanted to stick with their own little group of exchange students. This frustrated me greatly because I couldn’t understand it. (When I was in Germany, I wanted GERMAN friends! If I had wanted American friends, I would have stayed in the U.S.!) My German skills were dying a little each day (which Markus kindly pointed out to me whenever I typed so much as a word of German). The stress of classes and grad. school applications was almost too much to bear. I hadn’t needed my anxiety pills very often when in Germany, but I definitely needed them on a regular basis when I was thrown back into the American way of life... GO-GO-GO! Succeed! GO-GO-GO! Win! GO-GO-GO!

At times, people would try to cheer me up. They told me things like, “Oh, senior year is so exciting! After all, college is the greatest 4 years of your life!” Excuse me? The best time of my life? -crap! You’re basically telling me that my life will suck from here on out??? I had already experienced my greatest semester of college (GERMANY), so what was there to look forward to? I would go into these periods of depression and did nothing in my free time other than sit and stare off into space missing Germany. I even missed things about Germany that I hadn’t liked much when I was there! Sometimes, I would get flat out angry and hate America for being different than Germany…. It was not a pleasant phase to live through.

Even the ice arena had changed. Becky had graduated and moved to Western Michigan University where she made the senior synchronized skating team. For those who don’t know Becky, first- I’m sorry; and second – She was pretty much the life of the ice arena. Things seemed so dull and quiet without her around. In time, however, the ice arena became a happy place again; and I picked up several new individual students.

Another thing that slowly helped me get over being back home was working in the language preschool. I worked there twice a week with 3 other CSD seniors. After a while, we got to know each other better, and I felt like I finally had friends in the program. Also, I was learning so much from Dana (The preschool director-an SLP) and was starting to feel like I was becoming an actual SLP. Working in the preschool made me rethink my plan to work in the elementary schools. I may want to work with the preschool population when I finish school. We shall see.

The second semester of my senior year also had its fair share of ups and downs, but, overall, I was in a better emotional state. It took a little over six months to get over the reverse culture shock. That’s not to say that I don’t long for Germany anymore, it’s just that it doesn’t control my every thought. In the spring, I went through a great deal of drama surrounding grad. school plans. In the end, I got accepted to Truman State University. I’m now relatively excited about it and feel that Mizzou’s CSD graduate program wasn’t actually a good fit for me.

My summer has been pretty uneventful. I took one graduate class at MU, and taught an off-ice jump and conditioning class. Currently, I’m sitting in my room missing Germany and trying to plan a return trip in 2011. I figured I would write a “one year later” blog while Germany was on my mind and while I have nothing important to do. I’m guessing nobody will actually read this, but it was more for me anyway.

Mit Einem Lachenden und Einem Weinenden Auge

I think the definition of bittersweet should be something like: “the feeling one gets when returning home after studying abroad.” I’ve been kind of an emotional mess these last several days. One minute I’m absolutely dying to go home, and the next I’m wishing there was a way to freeze time. Seriously, I can switch back and forth between the two extremes a couple times a day. Currently, I’m somewhere in the middle. I’m really, really looking forward to going home; but I know I’m going to miss Germany like CRAZY.

Last week I went to Vienna with Mark and TJ for a few days. Vienna (or Wien) is unlike most large tourist cities that I’ve been to in the fact that it doesn’t have a significantly well know building/monument. I realized this on our first evening walking around trying to figure out what to do the next day. It then dawned on me that I know absolutely nothing about Vienna… Kind of embarrassing, actually. I know virtually nothing about one of Europe’s most popular cities. Not only that, a German speaking city! Then it occurred to me that we never really studied anything in German class but GERMANY. I wonder why Austria and Switzerland are “forgotten about” in most German classes… All of this led to a discussion about how ignorant most people are about the world. There are a surprising number of college students in the States who don’t know where Austria is or even recognize the NAME Austria. They assume you mean Australia. Sick. I was also shocked to find out that there were people in my German classes that didn’t know Hitler was from Austria. Or Mozart, Freud, etc. Anyways, Vienna was just as beautiful as I had always heard it would be. I didn’t actually go in many buildings because there was SO much to see. We did a LOT of walking.

After I got back from Vienna, I used a day to start packing and getting things in order to go back to the States. Friday was my last day trip using my Eurorail pass. I chose to go to Aachen, Germany. When Monica found out where I was going, I got the common, “why?? I wouldn’t even know what to do there.” Germans just don’t get it… I want to see a large variety of places across the country. Big citys, small towns, everything! I don’t necessarily DO anything when I go places for a day. I just want to look at the buildings, hear different dialects, and get a glimpse of the cultural differences across Germany. Anyway, from what I saw of Aachen; it was a cute city.

Yesterday was another day devoted to packing and laundry and such. I borrowed a scale from Monica, and it’s a good thing I did. I keep shifting things around in my luggage and getting rid of things to make sure all bags stay under the weight limit. I don’t really know how I accumulated so much in a semester when I was TRYING to be frugal!? Although, to be fair; not everything in my luggage is for me… lol.

It’s hard to believe that tonight will be my last night in Tübingen. I move out tomorrow morning and will go to Frankfurt for the remaining 15ish hours in Germany. I took one last little excursion this morning to Sigmaringen because it was free with my semester ticket and there is a castle there! On the train ride, as I watched the scenery fly by my window, I scolded myself for not making this little excursion earlier so that I would have had time to get off and explore all of the little towns along the way. Ah well, nothing I can do about it now. In my defense, I didn’t know I could go so far on the semester ticket until a couple months ago… Sigmaringen was absolutely marvelous! It is a charming town with a big castle… maybe one of my favorite castles I’ve toured thus far! Unfortunately, photography was not allowed inside the castle. One of the things I liked so much about the castle is that it had a very “lived in” feeling to it. (Many castles and palaces are too perfectly restored and kept up to imagine that someone ever lived there) Royalty lived there recently enough that there was actually a bathroom, light bulbs, and a doorbell system installed! At the same time, everything else was old fashioned enough that it felt like you walked straight into the 1700s or so. Two thoughts kept running repeatedly through my head during the castle tour (given in German) 1. Why can’t a take pictures?! And 2. Why can’t I be a princess?!

*Sigh* I guess I should get back to cleaning and such…

Land of the Midnight Sun

I certainly had a nice and relaxing trip to Sweden this week. I visited Sandra, my “host cousin,” for a few days in Stockholm. Although I hadn’t seen Sandra for 10 years, it didn’t take long to feel like I knew her well. And, like 10 years ago, I found myself wanting to adopt her as the older sister I always wanted. She just seems to fit well into the family. Just enough “crazy” to have some Rinkenberger blood! She claims that it is okay to be a bit crazy if you live in Sweden because they only see the sun for a few months of the year. Excuses, excuses! lol. Oh, and we pretty much wear the exact same size in everything! Meaning… double the wardrobe?!? Haha.

Sandra’s has a cute, well-decorated apartment not to far from Stockholm. Apparently, the Swedish are really into home décor; which explains all of the home décor shops I came across. Hmm, I could get used to that. We seemed to stop at most of them, but that was fine by me as I enjoy decorating and shopping.

As my trip wore on, I discovered more and more Swedish words that were similar to German. I kept guessing what things said and freaking Sandra out because I was often correct. After accidentally using an ATM in Swedish, Sandra said, “Whatever. I’m not even impressed anymore. I’m just getting used to you being really intelligent.” I tried to explain that a lot of things were fairly easy to guess because of my knowledge of German. “Yeah, but still.” So, yeah, I enjoyed the language aspect of being in Sweden. It was like a game trying to guess the meaning of various signs.

Another thing that made my stay in Sweden so nice was that it felt a little more like being at home in some ways. Part of this is due to the fact that Sandra sort of feels like family, partly having real home cooked meals, and then just relaxing in the evenings watching movies and TV in ENGLISH again. (The Swedish only have subtitles rather than dubbed television) Sandra was shocked to find out that I had never seen “Walk the Line,” so we watched that one night. During commercial breaks, I would either get more to drink/ snack on or tease Sandra’s cat, Foxy, with the laser. Endless entertainment, eh?

This may come as a shock to some, but I have gotten quite good about trying new foods. I tried some new dishes with Sandra including this stuff called Kroppkaka. It was…interesting. It is a traditional Swedish dish which consists of potato dumplings with a filling of onions, pork or bacon. Common ingredients are potatoes, wheat flour, onion, salt and minced pork. It is served with butter and lingonberry jam. Don’t ask me where the idea for THAT recipe came from. Seems about as random as it gets. And…well, I don’t think I’ll be missing that dish anytime soon. But hey, at least I tried the local cuisine. I also tried Wayne’s Coffee (ok, not quite as adventurous), which is the Swedish version of Starbucks. Would you believe that Sweden does not have a SINGLE Starbucks?!? I didn’t think there were any developed countries left in the World without a single Starbucks! So yeah, Wayne’s Coffee was alright, but I still prefer Starbucks, Panera, Kaldi’s, and other American coffee companies. Of course, I tried the Swedish chocolate without hesitation. No complaints there!

While in Sweden for a few days, I was able to see a nice variety of things at a very relaxing pace. I saw everything from the city of Stockholm itself, castles, and Sigtuna to a little Viking village near Sandra’s town.