Today's my last day. I'm very upset. Where have the past five months gone? It seems like only last week that I showed up here with a suitcase and butterflies in my stomach, and now I'm about to leave with my suitcase and a pit in my stomach. I told you in January how much I hate packing, but this is ten times worse, it's more closure than I can handle at the moment. My room is completely barren right now and my suitcase is giving me the stink-eye in the corner because it thinks I've filled it past capacity. Oops.
Going through all of the things I have collected this semester has made me a bit sad, but more than anything, I have a huge feeling of nostalgia and happiness. I don't know how it's already over, but I'm extremely happy with my time here. I didn't have a clue what I was getting into but I am so amazed, thrilled, and proud at all that I have been so fortunate to accomplish this semester.
People have been moving out the last couple of weeks and it's so hard to see everyone go. We're literally from all corners of the earth (Well, maybe not really literally, as the earth is a sphere and therefore doesn't have corners, but you get the concept.) That means that I'm never going to see so many of the people who I have spent so much time with, and who have made my exchange amazing, again.
We have been doing a lot of reflecting on how much we've been so fortunate to do this semester and how lucky we feel. We laughed about walking down the sidewalks of Groningen at all hours of the day and night to catch the train to our next destination, how giddy we were when we first got off the bus in Edinburgh, sleeping at the airport in Bremen, marveling at the Berliner Dom in Berlin, our series of unfortunate events with the London transportation system and our failed attempts at breaking into Platform 9 3/4, waiting at the bus station in Brussels, watching the light show at the Eiffel Tower at night, taking siestas in Spanish parks and gawking at the Gaudi architecture, walking through the old town of Prague and the gardens at the palace in Vienna, walking along the gorgeous Lake Geneva in the Swiss mountains, climbing around the ruins of Ostia Antica, admiring the Colosseum at night, swimming at the baths in Budapest, and the list goes on and on and on. In the Netherlands we've dutifully clad ourselves in orange to celebrate the queen, have shared our cultures with the many international dinners, have ridden our bikes (as well as on the backs of others bikes) like true Dutch students, have taught each other languages, explored a bunch of Dutch cities, and went to school in a foreign institution.
I'll have to wait a couple of days before I can really debrief on how I feel about leaving, but I do feel like it will be strange to go home. Five months is a good length of time to be gone, but it sure does go fast. Maybe it's for the best though. If I stay any longer, I might run the risk of becoming ambivalent to the great opportunity that I have been given. I guess the trick is to leave yourself wanting more so (1) you can come back and (2) you are more grateful for the time that you had.
Today, we're planning on going out on a boat on the canals in Groningen. Of course it's raining pretty hard, but I think we're going to do it anyway. It's not like we're not used to it raining every time we want to do something here. I seriously love the Netherlands and so much about it, but the sun does not seem to share that same sentiment. What we really have learned this past semester is that we're supposed to take advantage of the sun as soon as it comes out because it is always fleeting. The sun was out yesterday. It is not out today. We should have known better. Oh well.
