Leaving Germany

My Saturday had an early start at 4:15. I finished packing and then got in a cab to the airport at 5:00. I wasn’t ready to leave, and I actually found leaving to be quite hard. But at the same time, I was ready to be home and be done with the 13 hours of traveling. While I was waiting at the Berlin airport, I ended up talking with an Australian anesthesiologist about comparative healthcare and about the differences between the systems of Australia, United States, and Germany, which was something I could not have done before this trip and before learning about it from Dr. Wasser. On my long flight from Frankfurt to Dallas, I watched the movie “The Zookeepers Wife.” This movie is based on a true story about a couple that owned a zoo in Warsaw, Poland, during WW2. The zoo was destroyed by the Germans, but they used their underground storage rooms to hide Jews until they could be smuggled out of the city. Lutz Heck, the Nazi zoologist who took over their zoo, was in charge of a project to bring aurochs back from extinction by breeding bison. It was amazing to see this, along with many other things in the movie, because it was something I learned on my study abroad. I am extremely thankful for all I was able to learn while in Germany, and I am proud to be much more knowledgeable about things like the holocaust.

Travelling home wasn’t very fun, especially since there were children screaming the entire 11 hour plane ride to Dallas. I’m not exaggerating when I say the entire time…. There was literally at least one child crying or screaming every minute of that flight. But even so, I was able to sleep for a total of about 5 hours. When I finally got off the plane, it felt good to be back, but not as good as I has expected it would be back in May. I felt like I had left a piece of me back in Germany. I already can’t wait to go back. My family is happy to have me home, though, and I am excited to see them again. I think that getting readjusted back to life here will be a little difficult because I feel like I’m looking at life through a new lens. It feels good to be home, but I hope I have the opportunity to go back to the place that’s been my home for the last 6 weeks.

Auf wiedersehen, Deutschland. For now, anyways….

Alana