I came home on Nov. 30 to find a large, flat package on my bed. My dear host mother had purchased me an advent calendar, one of those darling ones that had a piece of chocolate behind every little door. The kind that my mother once refused to get back when we were a) younger and b) religious (two instances that I only have a vague memory of).
It's only right that my farewell to Berlin is in part a tribute to my host family. When I was deciding to go abroad, I was torn between living in an apartment complex with the rest of the group or taking the road less traveled by living with a host family. Eventually, thanks to the testimonies of other would-be Berliners, I stuck with the host family and boarded a plane to Germany in August positively quaking over the idea of living with strangers for four months.
Would they hate me? Would I hate them? Would the house smell bad and be constantly overheated? Would I expect stern looks if I was going to be out late or bring someone home at night or miss dinner or any of the myriad expectations left over from living with my own family? Our pre-Berlin contact over the summer was minimal - they basically told me to just chill out on all of the questions and I'd find out when I got there whether or not they were kidnappers or had 24 cats.
Four months later, I am painfully overwhelmed by the idea of leaving. The house smells like vanilla and it's properly chilly at night. It's perfectly fine if I miss dinner and they love my friends. We live in Kreuzberg, which is the historic district of West Berlin that the city's counterculture reputation is built on, and it's amazing. I'm home not only in this house but also this city. Plus, it turns out that the apartment complex is in the suburbs and alarmingly similar to the Berks.
My host mother comes from Poland, which, despite a frigid climate, is a country of tender, gentle people. She is positively obsessed with small dogs and sends me those motivational e-mails with pictures of puppies with ducklings on their heads. She tells amazing stories and likes to give "Go team!" butt-pats. My host father looks like the "Little German" from those Riesling ads, all white-haired and mustachio. If I ever saw him in lederhosen, I wouldn't know what to do with myself. He loves Jim Jarmusch movies and we've watched "Night on Earth" about a thousand times (but don't ask him what he thinks of "Broken Flowers"). My host brother is unusually fascinated by American fast food and consumes more McDonald's in a week than I have in my entire life. His girlfriend speaks not a word of English but still took me to this cheesy discotheque where we danced in front of a mirror the whole night.
Everyone should have multiple families. Our roots are with mom, dad, grandma, whoever. That is the foundation from which these branches extend. My friends at AU are like family to me too; albeit this strange, incestuous family that I am consistently frustrated with but nonetheless love with all of my heart. And now I have a third - a German counterpart to my roots. We all go through life accumulating these little clusters of experience and emotion, of warmth and care that have a profound impact on us.
The first weekend in Berlin, I caught one of those really debilitating colds. I knew it would happen and I dreaded it because I would have to deal with the usual feelings of "I want my mommy!" But then somehow, after only knowing my host mother for one week, I suddenly had all of the necessary mommy-ing. Tea was made and baths were drawn and I knew that the homesickness I otherwise irrationally suffer from whenever I leave home base would pass me by. From that point on, I've gone this whole semester in some sort of haze. It's sounds clich? but I had literally no idea the time would pass this fast.
And now I go home. Departure has been something lurking in the back of my head ever since arrival. That's sort of the nature of going abroad - this fleeting, transitory experience that is meant to give you a burst of new reality. Ideally, it's the type of thing that will change you. We are expected to return to base after spending four months as a satellite, orbiting and (hopefully) collecting insight. But is my perspective really that different? Have I changed? I can't even tell yet. I'm still here.
