Reflection Blog

6/14/09
I arrived back to the United States exactly one month ago and it’s amazing how quickly things return to normal after such a monumental trip. This summer seems even busier than past summers because the five weeks I spent in Europe shortened my time at home. I still think about the Europe trip every day and love telling anyone who will listen about our adventures overseas.

I distinctly remember when I was sitting in the Berlin airport waiting for my plane I heard a man with an American accent and I thought “that sounds like Dr. Wasser.” Then I heard another man speak with an American accent and I thought “Hey! He sounds like Dr. Wasser, too!” Then I realized that the only male voice with an American accent I had heard in the last three weeks was Dr. Wasser’s (other than Chris, but he sounds more young) so these guys automatically sounded like Dr. Wasser to me! I thought that was pretty funny.
After the Germany part of my trip, I met up with my boyfriend and went to an Oasis concert in Manchester which was pretty intense and tons of fun (check out Oasis Heaton Park on youtube). We then continued on to Venice (where we got engaged!!), Florence, and Rome. I had an amazing time in Italy and it was definitely one of my favorite European countries.

I arrived home late Saturday night, had Sunday to get situated, and then started work Monday morning. I wish I had taken a few days off before starting work so that I would have had more time to reflect on the trip. I think about it every day for one reason or another, but I don’t feel like I’ve really had time to organize all of my thoughts (and pictures!) or to tell anyone every detail of what I did while in Europe. One thing that bothers me about being so busy is that I haven’t been able to go through all of my pictures and remember everything I did and I worry that I’ll start forgetting things already.

When I got back to the US, I was quite happy to have the conveniences of home again. English, American dollars, my car, American food, laundry, and the lack of a suitcase were all nice to return to despite how comfortable I became with European travel. There are definitely characteristics of European life that I admire, leading to the following consequences: Seeing Americans waddle through the airport with their huge suit cases seems silly now. I don’t let myself absent mindedly drink 10 free refills of soda at restaurants anymore. I feel guilty filling up my car with gas when I could probably find a way to carpool more often. Cities lacking any buildings over 500 years old seem dull. Pickup trucks and SUV’s that have never been used to haul something seem like a big waste of money and strain on the environment. I can’t use the restroom in a McDonalds without buying something, even if I’m on a road trip. Of course the worst thing about America is that there’s no Olaf and Steffie here…

Going to Europe was a great learning experience for me both for the veterinary part and the basic world travel aspects. I have never been a history/geography buff and traveling around Europe really opened my eyes to what that area of the world has to offer. I saw the Berlin Holocaust monument on television a couple weeks after we returned to the US and it was just so cool to me that I not only knew about the monument and its significance, but that I had actually stood in that spot looking out over the memorial. This experience allowed me to realize the joys of experiencing people and places completely foreign to me. It was great to learn to navigate travel in a country where English was not the primary language. I went in to this trip thinking this may be my only opportunity to travel to Europe, but now that I’ve experienced world travel, I know I will find a way to return to Europe and to journey to other faraway places because I think I’m addicted, and where there’s a will, there’s a way!

Not too late I hope...

I realize we were supposed to write a post-adventure blog about a month after we came home but I'm hoping two months is acceptable. It's hard to believe it's been that long since our trip ended. I think it's because I've been telling everyone I know about what an amazing time we had that I still kind of feel like I was just there.

Some of my favorite parts of the trip were the visits to the organic farm and to the veterinarian who practices holistic medicine. Those were especially interesting to me because we got to see things that we're probably really not going to get any exposure to in our classes at A&M. I really enjoyed the time we got to spend at the vet school clinics in Hanover and Berlin because we got to watch some really neat surgeries, but I know that those are things I'll be exposed to in 4th year so actually going out to see a farm and to talk to a veterinarian in her clinic rather than sitting in a classroom and maybe just getting a lecture on the same subjects made it much more appealing and interesting.

On the cultural side of things I'm really happy that seeing historical places and learning about different cultures were both so well blended in with the academic side of things. The cathedral in Cologne is a tough thing to beat and being able to hop over to Paris (even if just for the weekend) was awesome. Even though agreeing on places to eat lunch or dinner was sometimes a bit tough it was still fun because everything we ate was something new and different... ok, except for the bagel sandwich place. My host students in Hanover were absolutely wonderful and I need to be better about keeping in touch with them.

Overall this was a great experience and I think all I'm going to say to the 1st year students in the fall is that they should all try to make it next year!