Halfway There

The good news: my shampoo—the largest bottle I could find in Rossmann’s—is only half gone, which means it will almost certainly last me until the end of the semester. The bittersweet news: my semester here is just about halfway done. The bitter part is clear. I am having so much fun that I can hardly believe how the time has flown, but I can’t classify being halfway done as entirely bad news, because it also means that I have already done so much I never thought I’d do.

When I flick through my travel journal—itself well over halfway filled—I see ticket stubs from plays, movies, museums, my first ever concert, my first ever soccer game, postcards, business cards from flea market vendors, programs, boarding passes (multiple!), and most of all entries documenting the many ups and few downs of the past month and three quarters. When I scan through the 200+ photos I’ve taken, I see children’s artwork surrounding the graves of the Brothers Grimm, street art painted and plastered on walls and poles, amazing architecture from every century I’ve studied, beautiful cathedrals, canals, street performers, cityscapes, and the amazing people I’ve met here.  I can earnestly say I never thought I’d get to do and experience so much in such a short amount of time, and the fact that this experience will end up twice as long accounts for the “sweet” in the bittersweet realization that I’ll be flying home in just about nine weeks.