It has been a little over two months since returning from my adventure abroad, and so I decided to finally sit down and finish the story of my family vacation and reflect on my experience.
After being reunited with my family in Venice, we rented a van and started our Great European Roadtrip. First, we drove to Croatia, where we explored the beautiful coast and visited the Plitvice Lakes National Parks. The people were extraordinarily welcoming (excluding one border guard), and the country was beautiful. From there, we traveled north to Bled Lake, Slovenia, and then onward to Switzerland. Nestled in the mountains, we spent several days visiting different Swiss towns and mountains, and the country had no shortage of scenery. I loved visiting Mount Titlus, where we braved the skybridge and sledded down the mountain, and afterwards we walked around the beautiful city of Lucerne. As our time began to draw to a close, we headed into Germany, visiting the Black Forest, Hohenzollern Castle, and Lichtenstein Castle. Then we were off to Strasbourg, France, and Heidelberg, Germany, before finishing in Frankfurt, where we boarded our flights to return home.
While my family only had been in Europe for two weeks, they were already excited to return to Texas, but for me, it was just the next destination in a long list of destinations. I was reunited with them, so the location did not matter to me; I was already home. Granted, I was excited for Texas food, driving, sleeping in my own room, seeing my dogs, and all of the other little comforts that had been absent from my life for four months. When my grandparents picked us up at the airport, our first destination was Chipotle (of course), and I was sure to savor my first meal on American soil. Being back in America had a weird sense of nostalgia and being in a foreign place at the same time. Even something as simple as driving down the highway or seeing signs in miles/hour was simultaneously new and different, but also an old memory. Perhaps because I had traveled so much to so many different places, I did not feel a "shock" at being back. I adjusted quickly and found myself at home, but the feeling of "different" stayed with me. Old friends seemed like new faces in some ways. Old routines had to be relearned, and old customs settled into. As I experienced this strange "nostalgia of newness" (I bet the Germans have a word for it), I realized that I had changed. I was not the same person who boarded a plane for Germany all those months ago. I came home with new perspectives and new understanding of the larger world I lived in, as well as a new understanding of some of the people in it. Honestly, I think I am still figuring out just how much I have changed. If I had to describe it, I would say I have matured, grown up. But, if I am entirely honest, I do not think I really expected this experience to have a huge impact on me. Going in to it, I had desires to discover new things and perhaps be impacted in a positive way, but deep down, I did not believe it would actually happen. When I listened to the "Hero's Journey" lecture, I thought it would be great if that happened, but that there was no way that it would. Then it did. I experienced struggles, missing home, getting lost, frustrations and worries. But I also experienced overcoming those things, growing through them, and entirely new cultures and ways of doing things. And those experiences changed me. When? I don't know exactly. Maybe it was riding the buses in Bonn, or hiking through Ireland or the Black Forest, or exploring a new city with my companions. Or, maybe, it happened a little bit each step of the way. While I do not know exactly when or where I was impacted, I will forever be grateful for this experience and these friends and look back at these memories with gratitude for such an amazing, impacting experience.
