Well hello there! It's been a while hasn't it? Travelling made posting difficult and then after getting back into the states, I was thrown back into my normal hectic, whirlwind of a life, so it's been easy to procrastinate this very important post. But now it has arrived. There is a lot to tell, so let the telling begin. (Since so much has happened, I'm going to section off the events into separate posts, so they aren't as long.)
Auf Wiedersehen - Goodbye
My last post was almost two weeks ago. On Wednesday, classes had ended and then Thursday was the Kindergarten party, the final concert with the school, and then the farewell party at the school. I had spent the morning with my guest family, then had lunch with my school peeps, then went back to the house for the Kindergarten party. The kid's party was great and all the kids sang adorable little songs in German that I couldn't understand at all. I had to leave early, however, in order to get dressed (all fancy-schmancy) to go to the final concert for the school. So sure enough, I ducked out, went back to the house, dolled up, and headed back into town. One problem - I didn't know where the concert was being held....hmm. Option one - go to the school first and check to see if there was something posted there. Sounded good. I almost got there when I was presented with option two - sneakily follow the two people that I thought just came from the school and that I thought were fellow students and that I thought were heading to the concert. Thankfully I am a ninja, so this was not a problem. After a ways, I called out to one of them and sure enough, he turned around (leave it to me to follow people halfway across town without knowing for sure if I should be following them or not). We walked the rest of the way to the concert together, and the concert proved to be wonderfully entertaining. Afterwards, we headed back to the school where we enjoyed cake, snacks, and a bit of champagne. Some people unfortunately, enjoyed a bit too much champagne, and a few of my friends and I ducked out to go, where else, but McDonalds. There we had an awesome conversation about how God had worked in our lives throughout the trip and shared our testimonies. It was a wonderful way to spend the evening.
Then came Friday. I'll be honest with you all, Friday was a horrible day for me. I do perfectly fine with saying "goodbye" to people that I know I'll see again, but when I don't know if I'll see them...I get a tad...emotional. I first had to say goodbye to the people at school, which wasn't terrible, but then again, those weren't the "goodbye's" I was dreading. The Geistberger's were going on vacation and were leaving at 6 o'clock that night. The waterworks started about as soon as I stepped back inside the house, and that was at 3:30. It made it worse when Laura, the sweetheart, said this, "Du und deine Familie sollen hier leben und arbeiten (You and your family should live and work here)" and then when Lisa would ask me, "Du fliegst mit? (You are flying with us?)". I played with Lisa and Laura for awhile and then eventually that time rolled around. It was about 5:30 p.m. and Lisa came and sat in my lap and wanted me to read her the two kids books she had in English. It had become our regular thing, most evenings, before or after supper, she would sit in my lap and we would go through the book and she would learn some English words (or at least, she'd repeat them after me). I managed the books decently well, with only a few cracks in my voice here or there. Then came 6 o'clock, "goodbye's" were said, we wished each other well with the promise of having stories to talk about on facebook, and then they were gone.
I went back into the house which was now the quietest it had probably ever been and after a little while, I began to prepare for travelling. The evening afforded little time to be sad because at 1 am in the morning, I would be getting on a night train and heading to my next destination. I packed my things, slept, showered, took the bus to the train station, met my travel buddy, then boarded the train. It was the last "goodbye" of the day:
"Auf Wiedersehen, Salzburg" und "Hallo, Venedig!" ( "Goodbye, Salzburg" and "Hello, Venice!")
*In an announcer voice* Tune in next time for "Adventures in Venice!" as well as, "Zic Zac and Zurich!"
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