Winding Down but the Engine's Still Runnin'

Hello everyone! Just got back to my room after seeing my wonderful mother off at the airport. I was really sad to see her go and it hit me more on the train ride home that it did in the airport watching her go past the security gates and looking around for English directions on the walls and signs. And thinking about her leaving has got, of course, me thinking about how three weeks from tomorrow I'll be carrying all my heavy stuff this time and it'll be my turn to stand in line for hours to get my boarding passes. But I try not to dwell on it to much. I got a pretty relaxed weekend ahead and then next weekend is Hamburg and then the last weekend I have my last trip which will be to Budapest. Some might think 21 days is alot, but considering how long ive been here and how much time has already sped by 21 days seems like half a week left. But I told my mom today how I really do miss home, and how I love Germany and never will forget my time here, but I think there's a time and a place for everything, and I gotta say having so little time before I do go home, I'm getting anxious and eager. And of course with the little time we have left Germany is finally starting to warm up after what seemed like a decade of a mini ice age. School is also winding down cause after tomorrow I have only 2 more class meetings and then schools out! Now I know most of you must be asking yourself "Neal, what sort of exams or finals do you have to deal with over here in Germany" and that's a very simple question. Now what im about to say may cause a bit of jealous rage in maybe more of the student population of my readers, but as for my finals I merely have to write a 2 page, single space, paper on a certain product in a reading and how it contributes to globalization AND for my other final I only need to read the three readings we wont be here for and meet with the professor for a small oral exam. Ill pause to let that sink in..... so I gotta say one thing Germany hasn't given me is a lot of stress which is nice. But one things for sure is that Germany really has given me more than I could of possibly imagined. Just seeing it on my moms face when she first went to all the places we would go. Just the awe stricken, "Am I dreaming" face. I smile cause that was the exact same feeling I had when I got here. I would wake up in the morning and looking around forgetting that I'm not in my room at home and then having to remind myself more than once during the day that I was in fact in a different country and will be for quite awhile. Its weird thinking about the steps in the study abroad experience and thinking back to my first day here then my first month then second and now today it being 3 months and 1 day exactly since I left Wisconsin for this journey. It really is one of those milestones that are such a huge part of your life, but you don't realize the scale of it until its almost over. Sure 3 months ago I knew I was on a plane to Germany, but that wasn't even scratching the surface of the surface. The saying its only the tip of the ice burg doesn't really suffice. Its more like me being on the plane was only a snowflake on top of the ice burg. Even though im god awful at updating this thing, I'm really glad I got to be able to share all these moments with all of my readers, and also a good way for me to document so that I can go back in later years and read about these moments and these memories. But something like this, the fact that I never thought I'd be here, kind of keeps me on my toes because who knows what kind of other surprises are ahead of me. Who knows if ill be somewhere else or having some other experience that half way through or towards the end of it realizing this again is one of those milestones. I thank God to be able to have my mom out to visit me even though 13 days with her seemed like it was 13 hours and we both felt it. And now that she, as I type this, is on her way home, I hope that she had as much fun as I did with her and seeing all that I had to show in Germany. It may not be over, but already I know it will always be something I look back on and will always be a defining moment in my life, just when you think you know everything about yourself you turn the page and realize just how wrong you are and how there is so much more to learn.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young. - Henry Ford

Gettin' down in Dresden

So I don't think I even have to say how terrible I am at updating this blog thing cause I'm sure you all already have noticed haha BUT fear not. I have plenty of stories to put out all in one sitting (lets hope) so more reading for you hungry readers you. Hungry Readers. Now way back in April the 28th to be exact, the IUSP group and I headed out on our 2 of 3 trips we take while we here and this time it was to Dresden. Along with this great trip we were also accompanied by some great weather! So great in fact that when we got to our pitstop on our bus ride to Dresden I stepped off the bus into the sun and actually immediately felt my skin burning #irishproblems. Now one might think that that doesnt sound like the greatest weather BUT when you've been living in one third cold, one third rain, and one third cloudy weather for 2 months at this point the sun slowly damaging the outer layer of my skin was a Godsend. I almost shed a tear because of how happy I was, but it evaporated immediately exiting my eye. So after basking in the sun for a bit we all piled on to the bus and this is where things get sticky. Sticky, sweaty, smelly, and hot to be more accurate. Now i'm not saying the first half our trip wasn't it was just that after having the bus doors open to the elements and 50 or so already sun baked kids piled on to the bus things got a little hectic. The air conditioning trickled out of the vents like honey out of a refrigerated bottle and the only sort of cold relief i could get was when i simply put up my hand to the vent. But luckly I was to enveloped in my book really to notice. Now upon arrival we all, very quickly, stormed out of the bus and the organizer herded us all like lost american sheep to the front of the hostel and started getting groups together for rooms. Once my friends and I dropped off all of our essentials we grabbed the Frisbee, beers, and sunglasses and headed down to the river to enjoy such nice weather. Some people went out to venture into the old town right away which is normally what I do, but i thought heck we got a bus and walking tour all day tomorrow so i figured id indulge this time. Then we got back later in the day, had some dinner, and headed right back to the river but this time to just a quaint beer garden where we just all ordered a couple liters of beer, and relaxed in  chairs overlooking the river and the old town that as night approached was illuminated by lights pointed at the historical buildings. It was like I was in a romance movie or something. And after a nice night of relaxing in the nice cool breeze with some nice cool brews we all headed back to rest of for the next day. The bus tour started a little early for my liking and because of that i unfortunately passed out for the majority of the bus tour, I know I'm terrible for doing that, but hey a man needs his sleep haha. But I havent mastered sleeping and walking yet so for the walking part of the tour I was wide awake and absorbed information like a Sham-wow. From the city tour we took the bus to the Sandstone mountains and saw the most breath taking views i've ever seen. Took some bridges over deep trenches and did a little free climbing around the sand stones to take some pretty gnarly pictures. Then from there we headed to this fortress that has been around for centuries, but I believe the Nazi army used both to keep supplies and POW during the war. The walls were enormously tall so I figured if there's any place to hide out its here. Walked a little here, snapped a couple pictures there, and ate like 5 euros worth of ice cream which was very relieving if I do say so myself. And after a 7 hour day excursion we all piled back on the "sweat racer" and rode all the way back to Dresden just in time to scarf down some grub and head back down to the river for some more brew. Now one of my friends knew a german living in Dresden and said that she knew of this huge dance concert party thing going on that night and he had convinced us all that it wasnt that far. Had I known how far we walked and that we turned around before even getting there I would've stayed put, but as the young'ns say these days YOLO. And so we all just hung around the river again, but at this point I just wanted a nice bed so I stuck it out for as long as i could, and then headed back to the hostel and was out faster than you could say Schmetterlinge. Then just copy and paste the trip TO Dresden and cause it was just as hot, and sweaty, and filled with cranky smelly people, except this time for some reason I smelled myself half way through the trip and I seriously smelled like cheese. Everyone thought I was "overreacting" about smelling like cheese, like i really need to overreact about cheese stench, and everyone just blamed it on me being from Wisconsin, but I took that as a compliment. Then after I got home within the first 5 min of being in my room I had to jump on the bus to go pick up my friend from back home who was abroad in England since January and finished in April and has been travelling around and decided I was one of his stops, we both went to Munich for the weekend, but thats for the next post :) Till next time!

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they must be felt with the heart" Helen Keller