5 Months down, 1 1/2 to go. I can’t believe that I have lived in Germany for 5 months, or that I must leave so soon. Koblenz has begun to feel like home, and I’m really going to miss it. While 1 1/2 months is still a long time, it’s amazing how fast that time can go by–and most of it is exams, so it’s not all fun and games anymore either. Recently, I’ve been trying to get used to the idea that I’m going to have to leave–what will I miss, what will I welcome when I get back to Texas, what will get on my nerves? I wrote an article on what I’ll miss but believe me, it could be expanded with another 100 items, and I’ll probably find out more about that when I go back to Texas anyway.
Now, here are 5 things in no particular order that I know for sure I’ll like about life back in Texas!
(Warning: long rant about our kitchen.)
1) My own kitchen. The community kitchen in my dorm is easily my least favorite thing about Koblenz. It’s really dirty. If you clean it, by the next morning it’s trashed again. Depending on who has Küchendienst, it is either cleaned daily or not for a week. People smoke in there all the time, leaving cigarette ashes on the table and occasionally tobacco from rolling the cigarettes. People steal my food. Dishes go missing all the time–we currently have no scissors or pans for baking, which I found out only after preparing some chicken to bake and had nothing to put it in. Sometimes there are parties in there, and no one cleans up afterwards with occasional disastrous results (don’t get me started on the incident in February that caused them to re-paint the whole room). Food gets left out all day (don’t you want to save that stuff for later?). While I’ve seen worse (the kitchens in the St. Edward’s freshman dorms aren’t pretty) it’s the only option I have if I want to eat, and a lot of times I really don’t like it. Yes, it’s a student kitchen, but we don’t have to treat it like this.
Then there’s the community aspect of it. Sure, it’s good to meet people, but the shared aspect means I may decide not to eat dinner for another hour based on who’s in there or how many people are in there. I also feel really judged about what I cook in there. These students know how to cook and they’re always making really complicated meals with fresh fruits and vegetables. I really have never seen students cook like this. I, on the other hand, learned how to cook here in Koblenz. I eat a lot of baked chicken, Wurst, schnitzel (which I can make from scratch!), pasta, soup, and the occasional frozen pizza. Usually when I need to eat something quickly I’ll make spaghetti–on average, once a week. Some of the other students really give me a hard time about that and tell me it’s not healthy or ask me if I exercise a lot. I don’t think they realize that for American students, if you’re cooking anything besides Ramen you’re eating healthy. I’ll admit the peer pressure has caused me to eat healthier, but I still find it annoying because I’d like to be able to cook without explaining myself sometimes.
(I think it only fair to say that of the kitchens in the dorm, ours is only the second worst, and the others are a lot better supplied and cleaner than ours with locks on the cabinets. And I don’t hate my dorm–5 months of using this kitchen is just getting a little old.)
Speaking of food…
2) TEX MEX. Ask any American what food they miss the most in Germany, and 9 times out of 10 they’ll say Mexican food. Ask a Texan, and they’ll say Tex Mex every time. There just isn’t Mexican food here. I’ve heard there’s one place in Bonn that’s pretty good but in general, good Mexican places don’t exist, and they haven’t even heard of TexMex most of the time. The first meal I eat when I get home will be a big plate of enchiladas with rice and beans! Some queso dip and fresh corn chips too. Home is good Tex Mex.
3) Not feeling like I’m in a relay race at the cash register. I really like the grocery stores here. They’re smaller, easier to navigate, much less overwhelming. But the German cashiers here are so efficient, I barely have time to pull my wallet out of my bag before they’re done ringing up my weeks’ supply of food.You see, both customers and cashiers in Germany are extremely quick in the check out line. They probably know I’m American because I hold the line up while scrambling to put everything safely in my Abbey Road grocery bag. OK so it makes the shopping experience faster and you don’t dread the line, but I still haven’t quite learned how to work with it. If quick check-out lines were an Olympic sport, the Germans would win every time.
4) The sun. Texas has such beautiful weather. You don’t think about it much when you live there, but it’s gorgeous there. The suns shines almost every day of the year, I think. Maybe I’m exaggerating. I’m not sure that I am. But the fact that the suns shines less in Germany has been aided by the fact that apparently I came in the darkest/coldest year they’ve had since the 1960’s–in fact, it’s like that in a lot of places in Europe right now, not just Germany. It’s still not London bad here but, wow, I’d like to feel like it was actually summer in June.
5) St. Edward’s University. This has been my home for the past two years. St. Edward’s really is the perfect university for me. I miss my student organizations, the beautiful view from the hilltop, all of the free student facilities like the computer labs and gym, our on-campus coffee shops, the gorgeous Main Building, and all the gardens and
trees. I’m so excited that there will be a library again when I get back. I miss my friends and my professors, who were so supportive in getting me to Germany. I miss working at the FRC and the people I worked with there, and all the people who work at St. Edward’s in fact, from the janitor in Ragsdale to the Dean of Students, to the receptionist at Student Life who has always remembered my name from the day I first set foot on campus. There’s a career adviser who’s going to be really excited to hear about my adventures in Germany, and I know she will without a doubt remember who I am and where I was studying. I love that about our school.
St. Edward’s really has given me incredible opportunities to grow and to explore, and I appreciate that now more than ever since I’ve been able to take advantage of those opportunities. And regardless of whether I enjoy being back in Texas or not, I am looking forward to taking a walk across campus and just sitting down with a book under one of the trees by the Main Building. I’m so excited to be a Freshman Studies intern again, and I hope to even lead my own club when I get back. Maybe I can get more involved in some more of their global/cultural events and clubs. The possibilities really are endless–and I’m only halfway done! Germany has been (and will continue to be) such an unbelievably beneficial and fun experience that I can’t wait to see how that changes the way I interact with my home university. One thing’s certain: I’ll have a new appreciation for the classes being taught in English.
Now, I regret to say that I have to get back to studying for my finals. Wish me luck!