I'm sorry about my sudden halt in blogging while I was on the March. Our schedule got quite hectic to say the least, after my last post. Running on about 5 hours of sleep each night, I was in no condition to blog by the time I saw my bed. But if you'll be so kind as to check my blog next week, I've typed up my posts in word documents and will be posting them once I get to New York City next week.
The March was an incredibly transformative, educational, and inspirational experience. So I will by all means be posting the remaining entries so that I can share my incredible experience with you!
After The March I flew to Istanbul, Turkey to meet up with Lucy for the week. It was a nice and very interesting. However I don't think I was able to fully enjoy what it had to offer for three reasons. First, I was very much still processing all that I'd learned and experienced on The March, and I was feeling a sort of academic withdrawal from it once I felt the impact of the sudden drop from the program and re-entry into un-guided traveling into un-chartered territory. Second, and probably because of the above reason, I started becoming really anxious to just get the heck home. The fact that Turkey was so different from anyplace I'd ever been made me a want that even more. Third, I got pretty bad food poisoning or something and was down and out for a couple days cumulatively. But it was awesome to get a taste of the Middle East with Lucy!
Yesterday I flew back to Berlin - I was (and am) SO happy to be "home"!! This morning I went to school and picked up my luggage and chatted with Ella over tea and chocolate - I'd missed her a lot! That made my day. Then I walked around Mitte for a while, ate some food, and got a beginning Hebrew book at Dussmann :)
Now it's my last night in Berlin, and tomorrow morning I will head to the airport and then fly home mid day. It's crazy. I feel like the experience has gone by somewhat fast, but at the same time, I don't remember what it's like to be home in the States. It's my personality to become really immersed in wherever I am (at HWS, on summer break, whatever it may be) at the time and forget about what it's like elsewhere or in real life. But having been gone for five months, and in such a different place, I feel that more than ever.
It's sad to think that I won't be back in Berlin in the capacity of a (sorta-)carefree undergrad study abroad student. But I think I've gotten so much out of my experience here (despite my deep-winter-stint of not liking Berlin. To my defense, it was -10 F for three weeks). I'll definitely hold the city really close to my heart, and it'll be a really interesting and probably difficult adjustment period back into American culture and furthermore into NYC culture. But continuing to blog about The March, Turkey, and other things I haven't yet gotten to but am determined to record here, will help me through it. That, and a lot of quiet time. What can I say, I'm easily overwhelmed.
Here's a photo I took on a bridge here near school around 7:45pm while walking back from dinner. One more thing I'll miss about Northern Europe - 9.20pm sunsets!!!
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| The River Spree from a bridge on Friedrichstraße |
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