My year in review
My year.
I would think this would be an easy thing to do, but somehow it isn’t. This year was one of the most tumultuous, confusing, horrifying, and glorious years of my life. I left my parents, friends, and home. I learned a new language. I saw fourteen new countries. I learned more about myself, my morals, and what I want my life to be than ever.
Right now, I have less than a month left before I return home to Oregon, and it’s never seemed so short of a time. I have been living as a Rotary exchange student abroad near Vienna, Austria for the past ten months. You would think one goes on exchange to learn about a new culture, people, and country, but I know those won’t be the lessons that stick with me—what I’ll remember will, ultimately, be the people. This year I have met the most fantastic people, from all corners of the world. I don’t think I can ever really go home again, because home is everywhere I have been, and loved, and home is in every person I love, no matter how far apart we are. I have a home in New York, California, Colorado, Nebraska. I have a home in Canada, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, New Zealand, Chilé, and Argentina.
What I will miss most about this year will be that unplaceable quality all exchange years have. I’ll miss speaking German, going to Vienna, travelling across the country with less than 48 hours notice, staying up all night, drinking Glühwein in the Hauptplatz of Baden instead of a traditional American Thanksgiving, and Mannerschnitten and Marillenknödeln (yum). I’ll miss being independent. I’ll miss the friends I have made here, the most real and true people I have ever met.
This year I have started a new life that I will be giving up shortly. I hiked across Cinque Terre, made snow angels in the middle of the road at night in the dead of winter, celebrated Austria’s gold medals in the Olympics, gotten gloriously at Stephansplatz in Vienna, walked across the Charles Bridge in beautiful Prague, crossed off almost every book on my “to-read” list, watched the Grand Prix races from the fortress in Monaco, chased pigeons in Venice, skipped school to cook and study German, learned why you should always get a professional to wax your legs, gotten snowed in in a youth hostel in the Alps, been stranded in Eigenheimsiedlung after the Badenerbahn broke, seen fireworks off the Eiffel Tower at midnight, got pickpocketed in Barcelona, had the most amazing conversation about life after consuming a third of a bottle of absinth in Prague, played a mean game of fruit baseball, ate a half an avocado in one sitting because I felt like it, learned the finer points of haggling over merchandise at the Naschmarkt, played the Scene de Ballet (and loved it), ate authentic Belgian waffles, attended a confirmation at the Catholic church despite the fact that I’m an athiest, celebrated New Years by listening to the bells of the Stephansdom ring at Rathausplatz in Vienna, saw the Mona Lisa, been stranded overnight in a random train station in the middle of Slovenia, taught someone how to solve a Rubik’s Cube, went to the Moulin Rouge, went back to Kiel for the first time in almost a decade, finally realized how much I love my family, finally realized how much I love Oregon, finally realized how much I love my life.
43people claims that my life in 2005 was only 85% worth living, but I disagree. It was worth 100%, and I would not give up the memories of this year for anything I could be offered.
