Week 5: The F is for Family

This week, has been an interesting week, its seeming to be all about family for me.

I find myself missing home and my family in Houston, a lot more than I generally do being away. I find that my family in Houston is growing as well as my family here. This past week my host mom has been having some difficulties, because her family is getting smaller should I say. I respect her and I am so grateful for her and my host brother, but I feel so lost and I don't know what to do. She has lost a parent, and I feel so so lost because I have been there and I know how much that hurts. I find myself struggling between whether I should leave it alone, and leave her alone, or if I should attempt to comfort her.

That alone makes me miss my family back home, and this past weekend in Munich I went to see the Disney castle, and well, if you know me then you know I appreciate my Disney. Haha, oddly enough I have a sister who appreciates Disney just as much as I do, She is the only person who gets it, we even share a movie collection, talk about soul sisters! And I promised her we would do our first big Disney adventure together, but I couldn't pass this up, I had to go. So instead I sent her pictures of these beautiful castles.

The Neuschwanstein Castle, otherwise known as The "Sleeping Beauty" castle

The Hohenschwangau Castle

Aside from the beautiful castles, there was a more somber aspect of going to Munich, we also went to go visit the concentration camp at Dachau. I am not sure, of what to say about it. I am definitely glad I went, and I showed my respects. It was eye-opening and it was something I felt like I needed to do if nothing else, I will definitely bring my children, and more of my family when the chance arises. It was a great experience, it makes me feel blessed nonetheless, but it also made me miss my father. It made me miss my father because losing him broke me, so I can only imagine how those felt to have lost their whole families to these camps. May they all rest in peace,

 Lastly, I just want to finish by saying its been a weird week, weird in a good way I suppose. If it has taught me anything it's that family is anybody you want it to be and can mean anything you want it to mean. My family is getting bigger and bigger as I get to know these 30 people who were once strangers to me. I came practically without knowing anyone, and now I even have people I am going to dunk my ring with. Being on this trip and being this far from home has been fun, hard, interesting, saddening, yet exhilarating. I could NOT have made it this far on this trip without everyone here. So if you are reading this, I want to say thank you for a month and a half thus far that I will always remember.