.the.end.

so, Sharon and I are sitting in an internet cafe... for the last time. It's amazing to me how accustomed to this way of life I've become. Just taking internet cafes for example, there aren't any of these in the states which is weird to think about. And the fact that today we travelled by S-bahn to Potsdam to see 3 beautiful castles. There aren't many castles in the US either. It's very weird to think that tomorrow is our last day. We leave Tuesday early afternoon so I'm sure we won't do anything that day besides eat and get ready for our schlept.
This week in Berlin was fun. I won't lie though, at the beginning I was not excited about it. While I was packing all of my stuff in Dusseldorf, I didn't really want to be travelling to another city for a week. I felt like I wanted it to be another excursion or I wanted to go home. I didn't want to go through the trouble of carrying allll of my stuff on the train and then dealing with it in the hotel. It has been a bit of a hassle, but not as bad as I thought it was going to be.
The tuesday bike tour was good. I was pretty tired from the travelling so I wasn't as into in as I have been in other cities, but it was an ok tour. Wednesday we went to the Molecular Medicine place which I really enjoyed. Being a genetics major, it was really cool to see everything I've learned thus far put into practice. That was probably one of my top excursions for that reason. The developments they are making with surgeries and the 3D stuff was really cool to see also. That night was the pub crawl, which I didn't stay at long, but was fun while I did.
Thursday in Dresden was fun. I really liked Dresden as a city and wished we had more time there. It was beautiful, and it had great shopping... ha! The museum of hygiene was cool. I wish they had more stuff in english, or the audio guides had more english explanations. I was really curious about some stuff, but couldn't read what is was supposed to be showing me. So that was my only disappointment with that. That was a long day with the travelling and such.
Friday we went to the History of Medicine museum at Charite which was fun. They had a lot of interesting specimens, and I especially liked the bedside cases. It made the cases more realistic when they had the documentation right in front of you. It was pretty cool. After that there was the last lecture and then we were done with the program! Pretty crazy. I still can't believe I've been here over 5 weeks. I know I've said that before, but it doesn't stop amazing me. After we finished Pete, Sharon and I went to the Natural History Museum. We wondered around that for a while and then headed back to the hotel to nap a little before the dinner.
Dinner was A LOT of fun. It was a really nice way to finish the trip with everyone, and also very depressing because most everyone was leavng the next morning. The place we ate was really good. I love potatoes... so a potato cellar was great! It really was a fun night, with a lot of pictures taken. After dinner we pretty much walked around and then went back to the hotel. Some people went to a concert but I and a few others just went back to the hotel and drank at the bar there. That was fun to sit around with everyone before they left.
The next morning we woke up to only four left, Sharon, Amanda, Hannah and I. We slept in very late and then decided we wanted to go the the zoo that afternoon. So we ate lunch and then went. It was an ok zoo. I do think Köln's zoo had better exhibits, but then again, that was a pretty awesome zoo. This one wasn't bad. And I got to see the Hippos! So all was good. After the zoo we went to White Trash again which was good. And then basically bed after that.
This morning Sharon and I woke up to just the two of us left in Germany. Very weird. It's only been a few days but we already miss the friends we've made on this trip.
We went to Potsdam today to see the castles there. They were all amazing. The only one we went into was the Neue Palice. It was gorgeous! I really enjoyed it. The audio guides were really good. I enjoyed that castle a lot. Other than that we saw all of the other major castles in the city. We walked all over that place. We also found the Dutch area, which made us break our pact not to buy anything else... whoops! So we bought a few more things to schlept across the ocean home. After coming home, we ate some din at a random Italian place, which was really good. All random Italian places seem to be real good here.
Tonight we plan on drinking some sparkling wine and just hanging out really. Tomorrow we're going to sleep in and then go the cafe above the huge chocolate store and catch up our journals and just kinda hang out. It's our last day in Germany and we just want to sit back and take in as much of it as we can.
I have really enjoyed being here a few extra days. We were talking about it today; that is was really nice to get to end this trip on a relaxing note, instead of rushing to get everything done. It's nice because we know that we are going to back and hitting the ground running, but for now we can just sit and watch the world go by in a cafe in Berlin.
I am really excited to go home though. It's bittersweet. I don't want this trip to be over but at the same time I miss my family and friends and bf. I am excited to see my new house in NM that my parents moved into while I was here. It will be very nice to get to be there for a little over a week before school starts. It's been a trip of a lifetime. I know I won't go back with the same views on everything. I'm not a totally different person by any means, but I think it would be hard to come to such a different country and culture without changing the way you view certain things.
Time to begin the schelpt home...

(schelpt three times in a blog... Dr. Wasser, what have you done to me?!?!?)