Das Ende -- The End

So I thought I would close the blog up with a few final reflections about my time in Germany, starting with doing things by the numbers.

Here are a few countdowns of things that happened during my time here:

months abroad: 6

different housing situations: 3

countries visited: 7

number of visitors who slept over in my room: 4 (plus Mom who didn't technically sleep in my room)

number of people I saw in Berlin from Notre Dame who were not in my program: 7

episodes of How I Met Your Mother: 144

hours I spent in Language class: 143.5

hours I spent in Pause (breaks) during Language classes: 24.75

pictures I took: 1510

blog posts: 21

Things I Don't Even Want to Think About Counting:

people I met (and times I answered the "Where are you from? Why are you here?" questions)

words I learned

liters of beer drunk/grams of chocolate eaten

hours spent in-transit

new songs that Michael and Chris introduced to me

outbreaks of eczema

number of times I went into an H&M

times I emailed Mom/Erin/Kristin

times I didn't know WHAT was going on

times I DID know what was going on

times I laughed so hard I almost cried

Before leaving for Germany, I was obviously very nervous about coming. I adopted a song by Brendan James called "The Lucky Ones" as a theme song of sorts, the lyrics being:

"with our hearts in our hands like loaded guns/we're taking a chance; we're the lucky ones/this moment is yours, this moment is mine/and we're gonna be fine"

Well, I think I was more than fine. I learned a lot. I grew a lot. I got outside of the Notre Dame bubble (which I missed VERY VERY much, MANY MANY times!). I laughed a lot. I smiled a lot. And, as a general trend, I was very happy while being here. Like I said in the last post, Berlin was kind of thrust upon me. A frequent question I asked and was asked in being here is, "Why Berlin?" or "Why German?" Well honestly, I started taking German because I wanted to have class with Frau in high school. I kept taking German because I thought I had invested a significant amount of time in the language, and that I was close to becoming fluent (ha! little did I know what a process this would be!). I kept taking the language partially because I'm stubborn, but also because I love the experiences I've had and people I've met because I've taken language classes. (By the way, I honestly was taking a class a semester to just keep learning, and next thing I knew, I had a major!). So why Berlin? I had applied to study abroad in Innsbruck, Austria but a few weeks before things were settled, the program was surprisingly cancelled, so the Office of International Studies switched my application to our other German-speaking program: Berlin. I am SO happy that I ended up in Berlin with the people I did. Perhaps it was one of my favorite German words: Schicksal (destiny).

Anyway, I thought I'd close this post with my favorite pictures and memories from the last 6 months. Thanks for following my blog!

Aufwiedersehen! (Literally: Until we see each other again!)

Liebe Grüße! (Love,)

Emma