Onwards

I’m currently in Munich, visiting Jessica & Nick – two Reed friends who are studying here for the year. It’s the last night of my trip. Tomorrow (which is actually today already) I head back to Cork. If all goes as planned, I should be back in my flat in 21 hours or so. I can’t believe that it’s been 4 weeks already. If I think about it, the time seems to have flown by, but at the same time that night long ago when I stayed up packing and preparing seems like ages ago. I have done so many things. When I actually start to think about everything I’ve done, more and more things pop into my head – more than it seems could actually even fit into my memory. Yet I feel like I remember each of them so clearly, as if they just happened.

Until a few hours ago I was actually pretty ready to return to Cork. I’ve been very tired the past few days, and yearning for all the comforts of being in one place, in my place: my own bed with familiar sheets and my quilt, my own shower that I know how to work, more than 2 pairs of pants, a clothes washing machine, my own kitchen, tea in my own mug, my computer and my internet… But then I was looking out the window of Jessica’s room at the beautiful blossoming trees and the sunset over the student dorm buildings of Munich’s Studentenstadt, and I realized how much I’m going to miss this – having new views out the window, not knowing what the next day might hold in terms of adventures or discoveries. Yes, it will be rather nice to be back in Cork with all the things I’ve listed. But I’ve grown so much in the past 4 weeks that I think it is going to be quite odd, and I expect I will be a bit unhappy and tired of it fairly quickly after all this traveling (I realize that I always am excited about returning home after a trip, but that does fade incredibly quickly as I realize internet and TV and other such things that I find at home really aren’t quite as great as they appear in my mind after all the excitement of traveling).

But then I also think about all the adventures I have left to come – 2 more months in Europe – some in Cork, maybe some time in Italy, then traveling with my parents around Ireland & to London; this summer – being home, then in more northern NY, then Cape Cod; then junior year at Reed begins, and with it being back in Portland, and the possibilities that both of those hold. Onwards I go, o whatever other epic adventures the future might bring.

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