a boy with a story to tell

RYE Outbound 2015-2016

[eavrth]

What? Rowan? Actually blogging? Could this be? Yes, believe it. I am back. Half a year of silence, but I have returned to my blogging duties (yay!)

But why? Why six months of silence and then this unannounced sudden return? Well, that is a great inquiry. As this is an exchange blog, I wanted to speak to the fact that after an exchange student comes home, their exchange does not really end. Exchange is this beautifully endless experience that transforms your life entirely.

And that’s what I want to start touching on. The ups, the downs. It can be hard to come home from exchange, which I have already began to speak about. However I want to share my mountains and valleys of my rebound year experience, so that if there are any others who really have struggled with returning “home”, they can hopefully heed a little advice.

Ready? OK.

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I think the end of my exchange is the happiest I have been. Period. And that goes beyond the cut-out of my year abroad. My last months in Europe were without a doubt home to the happiest times of my life. 

It is hard to look back, or to write about these months if I am being honest. I cannot really begin to describe the euphoria that embraced and enveloped the end of my exchange. And I am not exactly sure why that is. I guess in knowing that my time left was becoming less and less with every passing day, I was thrown into a flurry of “Carpe Diem” on steroids, seizing each day for all that I could. 

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Ok, flashback to a few months ago (has it been that long already?): 

The end came to quickly. As I approached the ever so rapidly approaching date to fly back, I found myself swept away in a series of little adventures, much of which I will not bore you to delve into. Chats over coffee, ice cream dates, parties at national monuments, exploring new cities every week, laughs, cries... everything. 

Although these adventures are far less astounding than some of the other things I did while on exchange, take Eurotour, climbing mountains, exploring the greatest cities in Europe..., there was something special about the little things that I treasured even more, making them the greatest adventures and tenures of my exchange. 

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OK, to counter the interpretable cynicism that was my last post I am going to slightly elucidate:

One of the biggest things I miss about exchange is this invincibility you build for yourself while studying abroad. In the midst of the chaos that is a year abroad, your perception of challenges and feats becomes... well... different. You feel so invincible to whatever lies ahead. You conquered this year, you thrived in an environment completely foreign to you, you assimilated yourself into an unknown culture, your basic kitchen utensil vocabulary evolved to language mastery (or at least sort of almost mastery), you built a life for yourself... If you can do all that in a year, hell, you can do anything. 

I hate to say it, but being back can sort of start to weather on this built up behaviourism of “invincibility”. (In an attempt to avoid repetitive pessimism, I am not going to dwell so much on the slow deterioration of what used to be unlimited self-confidence/awesomeness/empowerment). 

The boy that used to want to play it safe studying sciences who changed his mind to wanting to pursue greater endeavours, aka the UN and International Law slowly corrodes to the boy wanting to take a more well-travelled road in being a general lawyer. The dream of studying abroad again for University becomes the plan of staying close to home. It’s sort of like the ambition I developed on my exchange is slowly back flopping on itself, trying to morph back into a version of what it once was.

I think the real reason I am writing this is to remind myself (and anyone else that needs it) that exchange doesn’t have to end with a flight home. I am a different person than when I left to begin my journey, and hell maybe I am already a different person than when I left Germany for the last time, but none of that means that I should not forget what I learned on my exchange. This invincibility for life can fade, but never truly go away. I know now that I cannot let fear override ambition. We are invincible to anything but ourselves, something that took me a year abroad to learn, and will take me a lifetime to forget. 

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A lot can change in a not-so-small period of time. It’s crazy to think about how experiencing life abroad dreading a soon-to-come flight awaiting being whisked away becomes packed bags and then airport security and then you are gone leaving an entire world behind. Change comes quickly and unexpectedly. 

Maybe you are wondering why I haven’t written in so long. I’ve tried. I promise. Life took hold of me and has yet to release its grip, thus time to conduct words from all these things going on in my head in a comprehensible manner has, well, sort of just not happened. Maybe you are wondering why I am back. Maybe you are wondering why this is being written on a 2am lonely night months after everything happened (beer, wine, and brandy make for a perfect writing inspiration). 

It has been a while. Since the last time, at the same alarming speed my exchange came to life for the first time, it met its final end, sort of. I am back “home”, “home” being a place that seems even more foreign to me than the “foreign” place I recently left. My exchange ended almost three months ago and I’ve been back in Canada for two months (already?). 

Going back is a beautiful thing, really. Seeing friends and family and pet dogs and all of the aspects of home you so desperately craved during the time you were apart from them, rediscovering the life you left behind... It’s amazing. But I’m not going to sugar coat it. It’s hard. Really hard. Looking back at the mountain of challenges I endured throughout my year abroad I think that the tallest mountain of all was leaving. 

It doesn’t take long for the home-sickness to set in. What was old and now seems fresh fades back into its old weathered, lived-through colour, and you realize that the home you left is more or less the same home you came back to (different in some circumstances aka mine but egal) whereas the person you were when you left is a completely different person than the person who you have become. And this new improved version of yourself is not as easily satisfied. This new and improved version of yourself wants more than normality. 

Sometimes I feel like a puzzle piece trying to be fit into the wrong puzzle. I keep trying to make myself into this shape that fits this new reality I must adapt to, but after awhile it gets tiring. I do want to have to force myself to be something I used to be. I want more than anything to simply slide back into the intricate mosaic I lived last year, but that of course is impossible.

I guess that’s the cruel beauty of a foreign exchange. You are given this year to have the most incredible experience you will have in more than likely your whole entire life, and then just like that it is taken away from you before you can prepare yourself to brace the impact being gone brings. 

I still find myself feeling those same pangs I felt in the airport holding my bags and waving my host family and friends tearful goodbyes. Going home doesn’t necessarily ever get easier, missing people doesn’t simply go away, you just get use to it. 

I guess I am in a weird place right now, sort of this in-between where I am still redefining my life back home in Canada, hence the pessimism and cynicism of this post. I hope I do not sound too bitter, because I genuinely am happy to be back, I just miss what I left behind, that’s all. 

I’ll try my best to keep y’all updated on what the heck I have even been doing these last three months, and continue to let you know how the whole readjustment process of coming home is going. More to come soon, I promise. 

[eavrth]

Oh blog! You’re still here! Sorry I have been ignoring you for so long (oops). OK since the last time we’ve talked I have lived out 3 of the best months of my life, left my friends and home behind, saw half of my family, travelled Europe for a month, came back to my friends family and home only to leave them shortly after to come home to my other friends family and home in Canada. Needless to say, it’s been a busy couple of months, which I should (and will) write about... eventually. Stay tuned, and sorry for disappearing. 

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Mom, Dad, I swear I haven’t JUST been partying the whole time.. In between the wild fun of being on an exchange, it’s always important to take the time to give back a little, and have a little fun in doing so. A large group of us wanted to just that, so we took part in a Rotary Event in Hannover to raise awareness for Tolerance of Culture and Religion, a very important theme considering Germany’s current state regarding the refugee crisis. Together with Germans, refugees, and our bunch, we took to the lake in the midst of a thunderstorm for a (very international) dragon boat race. Although my team may have come last place, I will say we easily came first in terms of team spirit. It was amazing to go to such an event representing the Rotary name! 

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The next adventure was Wolfsburg, for a very colourful day at a Holi Festival. Holi Festivals are essentially a huge outdoor concert/party complete with a wild rotation of DJs and of course, colour. Every hour, bags of powdered colour are passed around until at the go of a countdown, they are released into the air and you cannot see or breathe for a minute but it is somehow wildly enjoyable. Our obnoxiously large group of exchange students very wonderfully although very unintentionally met up with an equally obnoxiously large group of exchange students from another program and together we conquered the front row of the party as our own territory. It was a colourful mess, but the most fun I’ve had in a LONG time. 

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Of course, my father and brother simply couldn’t stand being away from me, so they decided to make an appearance as well! I spent the day showing them my favourite places in Hamburg as well as going on a boat tour. The night was... interesting to say the least. The other exchange students with my brother and myself all went to a Mac Miller concert in the infamous Reeperbahn of Hamburg. The night was absolutely insane and I know I will never forget it. 

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Then it was farewell for now to the famjam, back to school for a day, and then... HAMBURG! Hamburg is easily one of the most exciting and fun cities in Germany, so I was elated to have the chance to come back. It was also a blast to chill a little with the exchange students living near Hamburg. 

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Our last day in Holzminden was spent on the Weser, the river flowing right next to my city. The sun was shining, so I thought it might be fun to take in the surrounding area of my city from a different perspective, and with that in mind we took off on a relaxing 12km tour in a canoe. Although we were sunburnt to even further extents, it was again nice to have a moment alone, just the three of us to hang out a bit (I had to stick out my tongue to annoy my father is doesn’t like when I stick out my tongue aka. constantly) 

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Then it was time for a rather large change of atmosphere, with a visit to the Bergen-Belson Concentration Camp Memorial just outside Celle, where Anne Frank and her sister were ultimately murdered. The memorial had an ominous and grim feeling that even the weather outside could not erase. Inside, images, videos, and information were given of what inhumane atrocities took place at the camp years ago. Even writing about it gives me chills up and down my arm. What you see in there... The brutality, how disgustingly inhumane people were treated... It really takes a piece out of you. 

Almost harder than seeing the vivid images inside of the museum were the mass graves outside. There were simply mounds, unimaginably large, with nothing more than a number lying before it. 100, 800, 2000... the numbers only grew larger. 

I believe that the Holocaust is such a vital part of German history, and it is so important to learn about. What I have and always will emphasize however, is how amazing I think it is to see how far Germany has evolved over the past century into one of the most progressive countries of the today’s modern world. 

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After such a tour, it was time to revisit the whole eating aspect of my exchange, so with the company of my host families and my German teacher/good friend, we all went to the neighbouring city for the most epic night of german schnitzel EVER. We dined on a 1/2 kilo of schnitzel sided with salad and potatoes, accompanied by lots of local German beer natürlich. The food was wonderful, and it was a pleasure to share the time together with my family from Canada along with the family I have found here in Germany this year. 

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The family visit, or “German Bootcamp” as it was so kindly nicknamed continued on with a 40+km bike tour through the beautiful German country side. Biking has been one of my favourite parts of my exchange, so it was really cool to show my dad and brother why I enjoy it so much. Complete with multiple stunning landscapes, a very entertaining host father, perfect weather, and of course, my brother’s new favourite food, currywurst, the tour was absolutely perfect. 

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Another important city of my exchange is Hannover, the capital of Niedersachsen, aka. the meeting point for exchange students. We were treated to beautiful weather, a wonderful tour through the old city, a picnic by the Rathaus, yummy German/beer, and of course (I wouldn’t have let my father and brother come to Germany without seeing one) a German soccer match in Hannover’s stadium. Now, Hannover 96 may be the worse of the underdogs of the 1st German League, but even then my brother and father could see how special, impressive, and simply different the atmosphere of a European Soccer match is. In the end, Hannover pulled out a win as well which was the perfect cherry on top. 

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The next important part of my exchange to show my family was something very close to my heart... FOOOOOOD!!! With that in mind, my third host family and I took my family out in the woods to experience something very typical in Germany for summer - grilling and beer! An eleven kilo steak, a basket of potato salad, foot-long sausages, and multiple crates of beer were in store for our evening in the forest. But of course, for so much food, one must work a little before. So of course, to my brother’s slightly bitter surprised, we spent the evening first on one last beautiful hike through the German forest to reach our grilling hut. 

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After the beautiful but gruelling hike, I figured the two suckers deserved a down day, so Family Visit Day 2 was spent touring my beautiful host city, Holzminden. Accompanied by two host siblings, I dragged my tired father and then very, VERY sunburned lobster brother Liam through the city, treating to them to a little taste of what my life has been like for the past year.