The End

I have a theory about travel. It only takes as long as you need time to adjust your mindset to the place that you're going. Thus, the day long trek which I endured to get from Galway to Milford was much needed time to realize that my trip was indeed over. The last month in Ireland was a hectic one. I spent the week which saw November turn to December visiting my friends in Greifswald Germany. And the next two weeks after that studying for finals and writing two final papers. Naturally my laptop died the day before my first final, so I have been without a computer for some time. However, it once again works and I am merely attempting to bring a sense of finality to my blog. (As you may have guess I never could keep a diary as a child either)

So, while I was in Germany I stayed with my friend Izzy at her apartment and we wandered around Greifswald, which I missed doing. Also, we took the train (which was inevitably late) with a few other friends to Rostock for the giant Christmas market, which as amazing and made for a wonderful evening. The Christmas market in Greifswald was not nearly as large or beautiful. On my last day I took a train to Berlin and visited a Christmas market there. Also very beautiful at night.

I had two finals - German and European politics. German oral went rather well I thought considering it took place the day after I arrived back from a week in Germany with native German speakers. However, the written grammatical proved to be much harder than I had anticipated, but I do believe that I at least passed. European politics was a wicked essay exam and by the time I reached my third essay (Talk about Spanish nationalism with reference to Basque and Catalonia) - I had little steam left and sadly, Spain was rather poorly explained. I had two final papers for Early Medieval Irish history and High Medieval Irish Archaeology. Each was 3,000 words in length and though I tried so hard, they both went over the word limit. I feel as if I had some sort of problem which needs to be cured with less information.

The last two weeks saw no traveling or adventures of any kind, save the precious time spent around town with friends whom I'll never forget. Both my Irish friends (who elicited a lot of tears from me) and my American friends, who received almost none, but only because we all convinced ourselves that we were not saying goodbye - only "see you later"s. It still seems odd that I won't be seeing these people every day. It's amazing how close people can become when they are abroad. I find that when in Europe (especially in a nation which doesn't speak English prevalently) even a Canadian can elicit excitement. Despite the promised facebook messages and reunion parties planned across the country, things will never again be the same as they were in those four months which we shared. But I wouldn't change it for the world. The people I met were amazing, and the experiences we had are irreplaceable. Thus, while life goes on, that time and place will always be the same for us. And I think that's pretty worthwhile, wouldn't you?