For mad men only

The trip to Vienna gave me a different feeling from the excitement and go-getter attitude that I had experienced so far in my short visit to Bonn. I had been able until then to live so happily and laboriously and appreciatively that experience cast a hefty shadow on the negatives of adaptation and most notably the nostalgia that accompanies taking a semester abroad.  It is true that I’ve missed my friends and family ever since I passed the security checkpoint at the International Airport of Houston, but I had pushed those melancholy thoughts aside to make way for aghast admiration of all that comes from living for a while in a different corner of the planet – where even the stars in the sky at night are different. I mean, this place is amazing; largely because – but not only – because it is different. The language, though frustrating at points because I know I’ll never master it, is beautiful in its complexity. Brocca’s and Warneke’s areas are working at full potential here, making careful but demanding use of what is left of their neuroplasticity. And, though I’ve revered German, knowing it the grounds on which some of my favorite authors (eg Hesse and Kafka) built their works, I’ve thought it senseless and unnecessarily difficult at times. Of the things I like most about life here in comparison to the great land of Texas is the feeling of possibility that infiltrates German life. This is hard to describe, but I can give some examples that I think show what I mean pretty well: It is difficult to meet a German that does not also speak English; or one who has not traveled to many different countries and lived for a while elsewhere; or one who does not have close friends of different nationalities; or one who does not appreciate their free education system. These are all probably interconnected, but it translates to a feeling of possibility and freedom that I ironically do not get from Americans. Just now, a dog walked into the restaurant where I am writing and it revealed that feeling of possibility to me again. You might have heard before that Germans are ‘cold’, and though that is true in that they do not open doors for you or smile at you if you cross glances while sitting in a bus, they are really warm people if you start a conversation with them, or ask them about their dog. The dog’s name is Paco. Anyways, I think this (and a girl called Roxy) gives some account to why I felt the way I felt in Vienna, Austria. What I felt was this: in the times where I was not enjoying a historical tour of Vienna lead by a costumed Dr. Wasser, when I was not eating Goulash or admiring the multicolored or oxidized green views of cathedral roofs, when the wine was out for the night, or when I took too long going from a Picasso to an Ernst, the shadow of immediate experience grew short and out came a double-homesickness. Not only did I miss my home in College Station, I missed what had become a new home in Bonn. Do not get me wrong, the trip to Vienna was amazing, cultural, informative, and altogether great. I wouldn’t change it. But there were parts in the trip when I felt doubly alien – doubly exposed – and I couldn’t force it down. I don’t think the feeling was due to the fact that I was finally getting accustomed to a schedule. Nor do I think that it was due to the expiring appreciation of the novelty of travel. It had more to do with the fact that I’ve grown to really, really, really like Bonn (I dare not say I love it yet only because our time together has been so short). And although still small, my time in Bonn is full of firsts, full of memories, and fully alive. Vienna made aware that this program, as everything in this life, will pass. Still, it makes me glad to have had this emotion while in Vienna, not because it would make me mourn from time to time for a time to come, but because it revives my enthusiasm for the life I’m living in Bonn; it lets me know that my time here is important and that it is right.