Another end, another beginning

Annnd I'm back. Better than ever? I think so. It's still a shock to wake up in the morning and find that my so called adventure has come to an end. The last few weeks in Germany flew. Just flew. And I went through a lot of the same things I went through when I was getting ready to leave Canada for Germany.

I was in total, complete and utter denial that I was leaving. Or rather that I was coming back. And yet when I stepped through that door in the airport in Toronto with my overweight, duct taped luggage in tow and saw my family everything felt right. I guess home is always home, no matter how long you've been away.

I'd say packing was easier this time around, since everything I owned was in one small room and what simply wouldn't fit in my suitcases I had to leave behind forever. When I left Canada I said a lot of goodbyes, shed a lot of tears, and took off with both sadness and excitement. When I left Germany I said a lot of goodbyes, tried my hardest not to shed too many tears, and took off with both sadness and excitement. The main difference being that when I said goodbye in Germany, it wasn't an "I'll miss you so much, see you in 8 months" ..... it was a goodbye, I really hope I get to see you again sometime in this lifetime...

Last summer I worked at Open Text in Waterloo and became really tight with all the other co-ops there. We hung out pretty much every night after work and most weekends and at the end of the summer we all agreed that it was "The Best Summer Ever!"

And yet there is NO way it can even touch what this last summer has been like. So many BBQ's, happy hour at Enchilada's followed by gettin our groove on at Classic Rock... So many dinners, so many memories... So many new friends. England, France, America, Poland, Canada, Italy, Mexico, Austria ...... I'm a really lucky girl.

And my homecoming was exactly as I imagined it! I'd been daydreaming for 2 months about coming off the plane and hugging my family, then spending my single week off relaxing in my backyard by the lake with some of my best friends. My roommates and another good friend from first year res showed up early on Sunday morning with big smiles and bigger hugs. I couldn't have asked for anything else!

We swam, and waterskied and tubed and swam... We hiked back through my farm, saw the barn the tornado blew down earlier this summer, I showed them the maple sugar shack and we hiked back through the woods and across another field to see some of the lines. We ate, we laughed... and it was AWESOME!

To top it off, since I've been home I've eaten moose that my dad got himself, and pike that my dad caught himself... Cheesecake that my mom made.... I've chilled with my brother... That week at home was perfect.

Thinks I'll miss about Germany:

• The superb sausage
• The scrumptious snitzel
• The beer
• The trains always running on time
• The beer
• The beer
• My job... it was a good one!
• The travel -> never again will it be so easy to just hop over to another country for the weekend.
• And most of all, the people. Most of them weren't even German, so I suppose I can't really miss them 'about Germany'... but i'll miss them a lot!
• Oh, and the beer.