My Final Post

Man... It is difficult to believe that I’ve been home for over two months now. I mean what a bizarre feeling. The whole experience changed me in so many ways that have only become evident after returning home. So here I am, back to “normal” life, but I’m no longer “normal.” I see the world in a different light now and have a drive in me that I did not have before, but I’ll get to that later. I think this may be best started by recounting some significant “landmarks” throughout my journey this last semester. The whole thing taught me an astonishing amount of lessons about both myself as well as those around me and how I deal with those relationships.

I remember arriving to the Houston airport later than I had intended like it was just yesterday. I was supposed to meet up with a group of friends on the same flight, but I had overslept a little due to putting off packing my bags until the night before my departure. So there I was hurrying through the airport, bag in tow, anxiously looking for my friends who already headed to security. If this doesn’t paint a picture of my character prior to this journey, then I’m not sure what will. Before this whole thing, I was disorganized, procrastinated, and not entirely motivated, but I sure was stubborn. This tendency to procrastinate continued to follow me well into the semester and honestly hurt me in more ways than one, but I learned.

After I landed in Frankfurt, the rest of the time went pretty smoothly. I socialized with my peers and some of the AIB staff. We shuttled back to Bonn where we began to be acquainted with the area and culture. When nighttime came around, I had already met my host family, been taken to their house, and unpacked my belongings. At that time, my host family thought it to be a good idea (and it was) to show me how to work the bus system around Bonn, so my host dad tasked my host brother (16) to take me on the buses. Mind you, I have nearly no sense of direction and would often have a hard time speaking up when I had a concern. Fast forward to when we are actually on the second bus that night. So at a certain stop, my host brother tells me that he is getting off here and tells me that I need to get off in three stops. Instead of clarifying, I just accepted his directions and figured that I’d find my way. Unfortunately, I counted the stop we were just pulling into, so I ended up getting off at Bertha von Suttner Platz bus stop instead of Konrad Adeneur Platz. That’s the difference of being on one side of the Rhine vs. the other. So I remembered earlier that I was supposed to look for the church tower and the house was right behind it, but I found the wrong church and ended up getting lost. On top of all this, I had no wallet or working phone on me, so I was solidly lost. I wandered around the area, making sure not to wander too far from the stop and I by chance stumbled upon the AIB. I took shelter under the covering at the front of the building from the misty night to gather my thoughts. I then realized that I had written down important phone numbers in my phone just in case, so I walked up and down the street until I found someone who spoke English so I could borrow there phone to get ahold of someone so that I could get home. I learned several survival skills for traveling that night, but the most important lesson was that about myself. It became more evident that I really need to learn to speak up when necessary and that my voice does matter.

Honestly, if I listed here each thing I learned about myself, others, and everything in between here, I would literally be writing a self-help genre novel. So let’s condense all that into this paragraph. The next couple lessons had to do with dynamics between peers and I and this lasted throughout the semester. These lessons ranged from working on the Enmodes project to just nailing down a plan of action for excursions and trips. My personality varies so much from everyone else’s that I found myself becoming frustrated and just going with the flow rather than voicing my own preferences or trying to mediate between others. I’m all about communication, but I really gave up on myself at certain points and that only ever made things worse. So it may have taken me the entire Journey, but I discovered my “boon” of the whole thing to be self-worth. To be honest, if that was the whole purpose of this journey (it most definitely wasn’t), then it was all worth it. Not only do I tend to value my own desires a little more, but I also value others more than before. In reality, this whole thing we call life is just one big “group project” and we are all on the same team. The goal and the journey is all love and nothing less.

The relationships that I built with faculty, peers, and random acquaintances this last semester are each and individually unique and I will always cherish them. This whole journey for me was just one big journey of learning the dynamics of value. This one concept holds so much weight in so many different ways in not only individuals, but in various cultures. I love that. Thank you all for everything. It does not matter if we argued half the time, rarely talked, or did practically everything together—you know who you are. Thank you for it all. And to those few who helped me get over some really rough stuff that was going on back home while we were over there, you’re some of the best friends a man could ever ask for.

Thanks and God Bless,

Michael J. Florer

P.S. If you are reading this and are considering going, do it. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to text me at 979-451-9882. Just let me know that you read this post.