Fulbright Hamburg 2010-11.: THE END

A year ago today, I was doing pretty much exactly what I'm doing now--packing up all my things, moving out, and saying goodbye to my friends who were still in Ithaca. I graduated in the middle of May, and stuck around in the city for an extra month since I still had some time on my lease. I used it to unwind and relax from the crazy whirlwind that had been the weeks and months leading up to graduation. I drank a lot of coffee, spent a lot of time outside just enjoying Ithaca in the summer, and said a proper goodbye to all of the people and places I had felt so connected with for the past four years.

Skipping rocks at Third Dam Gorge in Ithaca.

And here I am again, in the middle of packing and saying goodbye to Hamburg in my head. It always surprises me how quickly the atmosphere of a room can change. Take down a couple posters, bring down some books from a bookshelf, empty a dresser, and all of a sudden your apartment changes from a place where you live to a place where you lived. Shocking how the things and places you call home can have such a temporary nature to them.

It's all been a fantastic, wonderful time, but it has now come to it's inevitable end. What to say about the experience now that I'm at the end of it? Could I even begin to capture all of the things I've learned and done and seen in the past ten months? Find some way to bring it to a pretty, neat conclusion? I guess the easiest, most accurate way to summarize it all is also one of the shortest: it changed me. This year in Germany has changed me in so many different ways that it's hard for me to even express it or put it into words.

And when I say "change" I don't mean some nice, lovely, gradual process of personal discovery and self-improvement. At the very beginning this experience came up and slapped me in the face and demanded my whole and undivided attention. Right from the start I was dropped into an incredibly difficult position: I was in a new city on the other side of the world, with no friends or family, no apartment, a rudimentary and rusty grasp of the language, and a new job for which I'd had about two-and-a-half days of orientation.

Not only that, but the school itself was yet another hurdle to overcome: a so called integrated school, with a huge number of students with social, behavioral, and educational issues, and an 80% immigrant population. In one of my first periods at the school I unintentionally started a quasi-race fight between a group of Turks and Germans in a 10'th grade class. What had started the fight? A student asked what my favorite thing about Germany is, and, for lack of a better answer, I told her that "Döner," a Turkish kebab, was my favorite thing. Another Turkish student raised her had and wanted to make sure that I knew that Döner was a Turkish invention, not a German one, which started up all sorts of mean and offensive yelling from the Germans on the other side of the classroom. I remember taking the bus home that day and wondering what the hell I'd gotten myself into.

One of the main buildings on the school campus.

This, as you can imagine, was incredibly overwhelming. Finding my footing in Hamburg was like trying to run in sneakers across a skating rink covered in wet ice. For a solid month I had no idea what the hell I was doing, and each setback--each time I lost my traction on the ice and face planted--hit me so hard psychologically.

It's so interesting looking back at the beginning and reading posts like this and this, and remembering what it was like. For a while it was incredibly hard; coming over here and getting myself started in Hamburg was one of the most difficult things I've ever done with my life. But after a while the strangeness and newness started to fade away, and Hamburg transformed from a city where I felt displaced and lonely and uncomfortable to a place where I feel really, really at home. It's all a process of adjustment I guess. After a prolonged and aggravating search, I finally found a place to live after a few weeks, and even got used to the 1:30 commute to my school. I worked as hard as I could to speak and read as much German as I could, and progressed to a level I wouldn't have dreamed possible at the beginning of the year. After coming to accept that the students were going to challenge me I started learning how to deal with them, and came to really enjoy going to school. And, after a while, Hamburg changed from a city full of strangers to a city full of friends (corny sentence, I know, but it's true).

Loic's birthday party in our living room.

In fact, it barely feels right to have written a post like this, considering where I am nowadays. Writing about all the difficulties I had doesn't really feel like an appropriate way to represent the year since they lasted for such a short time, but the effect that all of those challenges had ended up being the point of the experience in the end. Had I never come out here--never transplanted myself into this place and undergone all of the stress and pain of adjustment that came along with it--then I would have never changed in the ways I have, never grown. I am such a different person because of it all, and that will be the most valuable thing I take away from these ten months.

I'm sad to finally come to the end of this year, but I cannot imagine it turning out better than it did. So, I'd like to say thanks to everyone who helped to make it so good: the Fulbright Commission for always being available to answer my questions and for offering me the chance to have this experience; my friends and family back home for always providing me support and encouragement; the Ketels, my host family, for providing such amazing support for me during my first few weeks here; my mentor and my colleagues at school for being so helpful in integrating me into the school and teaching me how to teach; my landlady for giving me a place to stay and always being around to chat in the afternoons; all of the bartenders in the Sternschanze and the Kiez; whoever invented the Franzbrötchen and Mexikaner; and, finally, every single person I met and befriended while I was over here--you made this year what it was, and I am incredibly grateful to have shared it with you.

And that, as they say, is that. I'll leave you with a few of my favorite photos of the year, and say thank you for reading! I enjoyed writing as much as you enjoyed following along.