I'm in Germany for 15 days now, and in my german home with my german family for 11 days.
I left Latvia on monday, the 27th of june. My hostmom and my four hostsisters brought me to the airport. When we reached the airport, Alma asked "Vai Annabella šeit dzivo?", what means "Does Annabel live here? ". For the little girls saying goodbye wasn't hard, because they didn't really understand that it's not just for a few days. After we checked in my suitcases and waited for my check in, one of the little girls asked if the whole family (including me) can leave now after we gave the suitcases away, because she thought that now, after we spent so much time at the airport and gave my stuff away, that's enough, and we should go back home.
When it was time to say goodbye, I put myself together, and hugged everyone, until I reached the last person to hug, my hostsister Amanda (she left Latvia 4 days later than I did), and then I just started crying, and the way to the check in through a labyrinth of Lufthansa fences felt like hours. My family waited and waved until I was through the check in. The Lufthansa guy at the check in looked a bit confused because I was crying very much. So when I had to empty my laptop bag and he saw the 8 books which I hid in there, he just said nothing and ignored it as well as my hand luggage trolley which had at least 2 kilos more than it should. After I passed through the check in, I stopped crying and just waited for the boarding with the other exchange students.
We flew to Berlin with a stop in Frankfurt, and probably it just happened randomly, but our flight from Frankfurt to Berlin went from the gate A14. That was the gate were 10 months earlier, a flight went from Frankfurt to Rīga, Latvia, and all of us were it's passengers. Being at that gate again felt strange. And a lot of us felt like the whole exchange was just a dream. It felt like we have been sitting at that gate to go on exchange just a few days ago, even though it was 10 months.
Between leaving Latvia and coming to my german home there was the YES. YES stands for "Young European Seminar".
It took place close to Berlin.
The participants were all exchange students from Europe who also spent their year Europe.
Maybe I'm going to write more about the YES in another post, but right now I mostly want to write about coming home.
These days at the YES between leaving Latvia and meeting my family actually really helped me and also most of the other exchange students, because there was kind of a break between our two lives. We just needed some time and we needed to talk. And it's never easier than with 700 other exchange students around.
On friday, the 1st of july, our bus left around 9 o'clock in the morning from Berlin, and we reached Karlsruhe about 12 hours later, at 9 o'clock in the evening. I got picked up by my parents and my little sister. Again there was some crying, but I was actually very happy. Because one of the most important things I learned on exchange is that I have an extraordinary amazing family at home.
I was home, and on my first day at home, I already met my family and friends at my welcome home party. It was great to see them again, and it felt as if I never left.
Still, while driving home in the bus and also for the first few days back home, I had this strange feeling all the time, which as I talked to some other exchange students, they had, too. It's hard to describe, but I'd describe it as "feeling way to much and nothing at all at the same time". It felt like I was feeling all the existing feelings at once and still I felt completely empty. Day after day this feeling slowly got less, and today it's almost gone and I feel normal again.
To the future exchange students who are reading this blog: Coming home feels freaking awkward. But you'll get over that strange feeling, and it will be good again.
I'm not really sure yet, but this might be the last post (or at least one of them) on this blog.
So I want to say thank you! Thank you for going through this year with me! Thank you for checking how I'm doing! Thank you for your support!
I hope you have a wonderful day, week, month, year, a wonderful life.
I'll give you one advise which I learned during exchange:
Make the best out of every situation. Take every chance you get. And never ever ever give up.
Kind regards,
Annabel
