I’ve been staring at the screen for a long time thinking about what to write. Most of the people from my program are on their way home and have written/shared their own sentimental posts. And as I’ve read them, I think back to reading past students’ posts and originally saying, “How the heck do people go through this dramatic change and swear that this is the best thing to happen?” And now I’m completely done with my program and I don’t want to leave Marburg. In fact, I’ve talked to a few others who want to come back to Germany for either school or just living. And sure, there’s some people who just want to go home and mark this off as another thing accomplished. But I fall in line with the first group of people (as I’ve also made a few general searches for graduate schools in Germany). But still at this moment, I wondered when this shift occurred for me. When did I fall in love with this city, these people, these experiences?

It’s strange reading back on my posts. I remember specific moments that didn’t seem important at the time but now they mean everything to me. Like watching the sunset with David, Will, and Matt on the Mensa steps. Or riding the city bikes for the first time and feeling like a clumsy kid but still having fun. Or even walking to Burger King with Cody and talking/laughing for hours about everything. Or watching Finding Dory with Anna at 11pm and miserably having to bike back with a broken bike and walk up the hill. Or being so confused and scared whenever someone talked to me in German and slowly learning to understand that German isn’t that scary. Or hanging out at the student lounge/bar every summer night and playing Werewolf with Heidi, Jake, Chase, Ellie, and others. Or having no internet in my dorm and just hoping that Anna would knock on my door and invite me out. Or dancing without a care at an underground bar in Weimar. Or buying my teacher champagne by accident but still giving it to him as we all laughed. Or hiking with some friends and then giving up an hour and half in and walking back with Yuko and talking about our different cultural experiences. Or looking at all the stars with David and Will and thinking how cold 50 degrees felt. Or even the day before my birthday when I felt absolutely terrible, so I took a run and was in absolute awe at the beautiful trails around my dorm. There’s so many of these little moments; I wish I could write them all down.

In short, it’s really difficult to say when this became one of the best experiences of my life. I remember in the beginning that things were more difficult than I wrote about - I was lonely, I missed home more than anything, I feared I’d never find lifelong friends, I was terrible at making food, I didn’t like a lot of people from the program, I hated getting up so early everyday, etc. But there were good times along with those bad times, and over time, the good times only became more frequent. 

Now I’m missing everyone and everything so incredibly much. It’s a strange feeling being at the “end.” I wish I could just keeping doing the program with the same people in the same place. But it’d be impossible to recreate everything that has happened. Like going back to Oslo (and expecting Rebecca and Sean to be around the corner, or going to that strange but delicious diner/restaurant, or sipping tea in the secret lounge), things aren’t ever really the same. We all came here alone to live in a foreign country and somehow we all made friendships and made it through school and just generally living abroad. Everything that we experienced is something I’m sure we won’t forget, yet I think about how soon that this will have just been a trip for most people. We’ll all go our separate ways and probably never see each other again. And that thought saddens me.

This last week has been jam packed. Thankfully, the majority of my work had to to be completed on Monday/Tuesday, so I could have the rest of the week to pack and run errands. On Wednesday morning, I had a room inspection and they found that I had mold. Apparently I had not been keeping my windows open often enough (which they told me is so “American” of me). Because of that, I had to miss my last university class to wait for the mold man to show up and re-plaster my walls. In the process of waiting between appointments, I began to thoroughly pack my belongings together and found that I had a lot of stuff that I didn’t really use (random T-shirts, a tablet, Tupperware, notebooks, umbrella, and so on). Once my room was mold free, I decided to clean out my spot in the communal fridge and found the only thing left was two rolls of cinnabons and milk. Naturally, I ran upstairs to a friend and made cinnabons. We talked about leaving and it was a bit sad as we walked our separate ways. Later that night, IUSP threw us a farewell dinner at a pretty nice restaurant. The food was great and it was wonderful to see everyone together. Mostly everyone did a secret santa and I loved seeing the reactions from everyone. I got a very humorous children’s book which I am very excited to add to my German book collection. After that, a bunch of people climbed up to the castle while a few of us went to an indie bar. We finished the night by walking all the way from the Oberstadt to our dorms (a once miserable walk, but now a very manageable one).

On Thursday, I packed even more. I donated some things and went out to lunch with some close friends. We talked about possibly meeting up in Indiana or maybe going to Mardi Gras together. Who knows what will happen.Right after, we had our last IUSP German conversation class. The class was each of us taking an oral test and then drinking warm drinks at the Weihnachtsmarkt. Then we walked to catch a bus and we saw the 7 coming and for the last time, we decided to sprint to catch the bus. We made it just in time as the doors closed right behind us. We laughed as I commented how it wouldn’t be a real adventure without us running somewhere. When we got back to the dorms, we made the last of our foods (imagine pasta, pasta sauce, eggs, bacon, and olive oil all together). Ice skating was our next destination but the bus was temporarily shut down so we all walked along the Lahn and ran into several other IUSP students. Ice skating was fun as many people haven’t done it so there was a lot of falling and laughing. We walked back to the Hauptbahnhof and ran into even more students from our program. This led to more hugs and goodbyes. The few of us who walked back just talked about our favorite times here and it felt gloomy as we rode the bus back.

Friday was move-out day for me and a lot of others. I threw my stuff in a friend’s room and headed down to the library to hand in one last assignment for German class. Through the very complex of checking out, we had to head to the Mensa  to get our deposits back and we decided to get lunch there one last time. I bought the group waffles as we waited for everyone to finish. Then we all headed to the Hauptbahnhof. I headed with everyone to Frankfurt and then spent some time exploring the hostel/city with the gang. I gave my goodbyes to everyone then ran to catch the train back to Marburg. I cried on the train as I thought about how that was the last time I would see them and how everything had just about ended. I came back to Marburg and took a very long way home, just to see a new part of town. I ended the night by going to get doeners with one of the few people left in Marburg and we got some Gluehwein on our way back. We ended up taking some kind of party bus filled with drunken caroling. It was fun as we walked to the dorf one last time.

For the third week of November, Germans have some classes scheduled off as a sort of designated Reading Week to catch up work. As for us, we had done the majority of the reading beforehand so many of us saw this us a Thanksgiving break. From the 17th to the 22nd, I flew to Norway with a friend to explore Bergen. Having been to Norway before, I was excited to come back to one of my favorite places I had been to. The trip consisted of a lot of walking around town, seeing the huge fish market, climbing a mountain, eating calzones at 7/11, taking at 7 hour train ride to Oslo, climbing the Opera house, and eating a 250 krone dinner at a high end restaurant. It was a bunch of fun and the traveling went smoothly.

The day after we came back, my friends and I made another journey to the Frankfurt airport to drop off our friend who was going back home to America. The experience was disheartening as it was probably the last time we would see each other. It also reminded me of how little time we have left in the program. As I write this, we only have 10 days left. Naturally, it’s sad, but school has kept us busy. 

Anyways, our IUSP organized a Thanksgiving together where everyone would bring a dish. I made a potato gratin and came a bit late as I waited for it to finish in the oven. Coming late, I missed the toasts given by others and also the popular foods. Besides that, the Thanksgiving was good. Everyone seemed to enjoy it as well.