Well this is it. Our time in Bonn, Germany has finally come to an
end. As I write this, Gunnar, Shelby, and I are the last three people from our
group that are still in Bonn. It is quite a bittersweet thought, and I am not
quite sure if I am ready to accept that I will be leaving such a beautiful
place with so many different memories. I do recognize, however, that no place
is quite the same without your friends, and with everyone leaving Bonn, it does
not seem as happy and exciting of a place. I have lived here for about 4 months
now, and I would call it a home. In the future, however, I do not think that I
could live in Bonn, for I recognize that my friends and the people that I met
while I was here made the city my home. I think that out of all the places that
I have been, Berlin has been my favorite city, and if I could learn to survive
in the cold, I believe that I could live there. Bonn was a great place to live,
however, and I will always be proud to call it a home away from home.
The thing that I am going to miss the most about Bonn is my host
family. Our host mom, no matter how sassy and blunt, was a very compassionate
and loving person, and I will always be thankful for her hospitality and all of
the long talks that we had over dinner. I could talk to her about anything, and
she was very open and willing to share her thoughts on any subject. Mariana was
also a great host sister, and since I do not have a sister back at home, it was
very cool to experience life with a sister and experience being a younger
sibling for once in my life. She was very sarcastic and sassy, but she always
looked out for Gunnar and I, and I really enjoyed hanging out with her. Chico
was also a great host brother, an amazing dj, a very resourceful person, and always
had our back no matter what. Even Pluto was a great addition to the family,
although seeing him only made me miss my dog back at home. Finally, I think
that I am going to miss Andre the most. Even though he did not live with us at
home, he always took the time to come down to visit us and would text us
throughout the week to check in on us. The very first time we met him, he
picked us up from the train station and hung out with us all weekend, which was
awesome. Having another brother the same age as me was an experience that I
will never forget in my life, and the number of awesome things that we
experienced together (especially Karneval) will be something that I will always
cherish. Andre was always there for us and always came through for us in the
end, and I love him as my fourth brother. The hardest thing was saying goodbye
to him before leaving for Prague, but once again, he came through for us and
managed to come home for one last surprise visit just as Gunnar and I were
leaving to go to Interlaken. I will always love our host family, and I realize
that it is not goodbye but until next time, for I know that I will come back to
visit one day.
My first impression of the people on this trip and the trip as a
whole has also changed dramatically since I first arrived here as well. Each
and every person on this trip had something unique to share with the group, and
I am thankful to have gotten to know each and every one of them. I know without
a doubt that some of us will remain lifelong friends, and I have established
some of my best friends while on this trip. I cannot wait to see them all again
in College Station, and we will all be able to make new memories back at home.
I am really glad that I am continuing to travel with Shelby and Gunnar after the
trip as well, for I am not quite ready to say good bye to Europe and accept
that our time abroad is really over. They are great people and have been
amazing to me. I would like to especially thank Gunnar for being my American
brother and for all the good times that we had together. I would not have had
it any other way, and I firmly believe that God wanted us to room together to
help us grow together in our faiths. He is an amazing brother, and I will
always value the time that we got to spend together here. I know that we will
remain lifelong friends, and I cannot wait to hang out with him back at home.
Lastly, I realized that I will be the last one from our group in
Europe. After all this time with other people, I will have Europe all to myself
for a couple of hours! Not really but it’s crazy that everyone else is already
back at home living their normal lives, and I am still out traveling the world.
I noticed that I did look too much into the future for this trip, always
planning for the next weekend and trying to make every weekend count, and I
didn’t always live in the moment and enjoy what I was doing in the present. I
feel like this is also why the time passed by so fast, and so, I hope that I
will do a better job of stopping to smell the roses while traveling with Gunnar
and my friend from back home. Gunnar and I both believe that the time has gone
by so fast, but it also feels like the first week was a lifetime ago. We think
that this is the case because we have grown so much, and since it normally takes
a while for us to grow, our “accelerated growth” has made us feel like the
things that happened at the beginning of this trip was such a long time ago.
This is my second to last blog, and so, I will bid you goodbye once more before
my final farewell. It was been a great semester.
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