This Is Not The End

These last few months abroad have been amazing. I have new lifelong friendships and I have traveled and seen and experienced new destinations I had only ever dreamed. I have also consequently learned quite a bit.  I learned to book flights, trains, hostels, and tours all on my own. I have had the privilege and opportunity to travel to France, Italy, Czech, Denmark, and Austria without "parental supervision," but with new friends right along next to me. Surprisingly, I have grown the most right here in Berlin. For the first time I learned how to not be afraid to hop on a city train or bus on my own. I am fully capable to get from one destination to the next without worrying that I will become eternally lost. I have learned how to become more aware of my surroundings. Everywhere I look, there are new opportunities. Whether it is to visit a museum or learn a few more words in German. 

By the end of my time here in Berlin I'm really starting to feel like a local. I started being able to identify and be aware of the carbonated water and instead buy still "natural" water, I learned how to ask locals for directions in German while actually understanding their responses, and I even learned how to live in my own studio apartment.  It took me until I had my license and a little too many times getting lost to feel like I really knew my way around at home in California, but it only took a few months in a foreign country to learn my way around. I hope to come back and eventually become a real local (without that whole school thing getting in the way)!