Home at last, but not that I thought it would be
I am back at home in Victoria, MN and have been now for a little over a month. Crazy to 
believe that it’s been so long since I’ve been in Germany! I definitely miss many things – the people, my room and apartment there, the culture, the language. But what I really miss is being able to speak German. Sure, speaking English is a great thing – I even understand basically everything that people are saying – but I feel as though I am cheating my German skills by speaking English. And if there’s some secret or some comment I’m just dying to tell someone, my thoughts go automatically to German. Every once in a while German comes out of my mouth as well, followed by looks of confusion to whomever I am talking. 
The past month has been a bit crazy. What with the reverse culture shock (there was quite a bit of that), making sure I was still able to drive, and cleaning my messy room I came home to was all a bit much for me the first couple of days back. Reverse culture shock was the worst: I’m still trying to get over it! What a difference in how the store clerks treat you, how spread-out and wide the roads here are, how friendly the people here are (sometimes a little too friendly for my taste now), etc. Everything takes its toll. It is still going to take me a while before I get used to being greeted as I walk into a store or when I am talked to by the cashier behind the counter – and not for doing something wrong or being in the wrong line. I am still not used to people I don’t know smiling at me on the street as I walk by them, or getting waved at while driving past your neighbors as we do here in this country: another thing I am not yet totally used to. (It’s still weird that I have to drive a car to go to the grocery store and then don’t have to worry about how heavy the products are or if they will fit into my backpack for the walk home. Quite a plus now, really.)
At times, I just want to pack my things and go back to Jena where I know I was happy. But things there have changed, too. Another roommate of mine has moved out to study abroad this coming year, so even if I were to go back things would not be the same. Most of the other exchange students are back in their home countries and the German students I met are either at their parents’ houses, writing their papers or are vacationing somewhere else. The easy thing to do would be to throw in the towel, buy a plane ticket and head back. The tough part: staying here and sticking it out, which is the right thing to do. Maybe things will be better once I’m back at Concordia next week with all of my friends. But then there’s the fear of how much I’ve changed over this past year and how much they’ve changed as well. Will we still like each other? Will the same common interests still be there? Will conversation be as easy as it was a year ago before I left? But I need to just have faith. If God doesn’t want me having those same friends, I pray that He gives me the strength to find new ones.
On a happier note, a few Saturdays ago I had one of the best days of my life. My uncle is a professional photographer and was shooting a wedding in Eagan, MN. That Friday night I got a call asking if I would like to help him shoot….and I would get my own camera to shoot things, too! What an opportunity! So I took him up on it and was even able to capture some really great shots. I got to learn a lot about lighting, camera positioning and how to capture the emotion of the day. When I made it home that evening, I was exhausted! But it was well worth it. The other day I got a DVD in the mail of my photos from my uncle with a note about what I could do better the next time: at my cousin’s wedding…slightly more pressure there! I was very surprised at how pleased he was with my photos and how pleased I was with them. Typically the artists are in some way dissatisfied, but I was really ok with the job I had done, lifting a bit of the stress for my cousin’s wedding. So now my job is to go and nit-pick my pictures and find out ways that I could make them better.