A few final thoughts . . .

Well, I've been home for a week and I'm back to wrap this thing up.

I've been surprised at how easy the transition was.  Yeah, it was really sad to leave everyone in Hamburg, and I'll miss walking in the Stadtpark, going to classes at HAW, doing worship and Bible studies with City Light, and of course all the food: the gelato and the little bakeries and the 69-cent loaves of bread and the H-milk.  And yes, there have been a few minor shockers.  (Bread here is SO EXPENSIVE!!!  And so many foods are unnecessarily sugary--ick!!  Also, the buildings seem so short and the streets seem so wide.  And the ocean breeze feels cold to me after all the humidity in Hamburg.)  But overall, it's really, really wonderful to be home.  I loved Hamburg and it really did feel like a second home to me, but I'll never stop loving Seal Beach.  Everybody who knows me best, and all the people and places I know best, are here.  Funny how no matter how many places you visit, there's always something so comforting and special about going back to the place where you grew up.

I've spent the last week catching up with friends at church and Bible study, at the pool, and in the neighborhood, and of course I've been spending lots of time with my family.  I did so much and went so many places over the last five months, but oddly, now that I'm back it literally feels like no time has passed at all.  Europe is still so vivid in my mind, but at the same time it's almost like a dream and I can't believe it really happened.

Turns out I lost about 20 pounds over the course of the semester!  Everyone keeps telling me that I either "look great!" or "look so thin!"  (And of course Grandma said I look too skinny and I "didn't eat enough sandwiches and rolls . . . you know how grandmas are!")  Considering that I was eating plenty of chocolate and ice cream, especially during the last few weeks, I can only attribute it to overall smaller portions.  I definitely don't feel a need to eat as much as I used to when I sit down to meals here.  Could also be a lack of muscle tone . . . since I never really did any cycling, lap swimming, or "working out" while I was in Europe.  I've already gone swimming and cycling a few times this week, and I had plenty of cake and ice cream this weekend to celebrate my sisters' birthdays, so I'm sure the weight will even out before too long!  And hopefully the time I've been spending outdoors will replace my ghostly white skin with at least a bit of a tan!  Right now I make a pretty poor excuse for a California lifeguard, as one of the lap swimmers jokingly told me the other day.

A few changes since I got back--Emily passed her State Board exam for cosmetology last week and got a salon job in Seal Beach only a few days later!  She's worked quite a few hours already, and I'm super happy for her.  It's a bit of an adjustment for us all, but this is a great thing for her to have gotten a job so quickly!  Also, Joanna finished her culinary arts degree at LBCC in May, and now she's gearing up for her first semester at Cal Poly Pomona!  She is looking for an apartment and will be living near the university during the week while she has classes going on.  It will be weird to have her here only half the week, but I'm excited for her too and I know she will do great.  I'm so proud of both my "little sissies"!  There have also been a few weddings while I was gone--Tim & Jen from Bible study got married, Diana and Maribelle (former attendees at Bible study) married Travis and Nathan, and my high school friend Jessica married her longtime sweetheart Stephen.  And sadly, my grandma's permanent roommate at the nursing home passed away last month.  Her name was Lucile and she was 101 years old!

And by the way, PRAISE THE LORD because Grandma is still doing well!  She is 94 and, although she's stayed sharp mentally, she has a pacemaker and oxygen to keep her going physically.  I knew that, in theory, our goodbye before I left for Germany could be our last, because she could have a medical crisis at any time.  She sent me cute cards and old family photos while I was in Hamburg, and every time I got one, or every time I worked on my printmaking project with her portraits, I would pray for God to keep her healthy so I could see her when I came back.  I'm so glad to report that I saw her this Sunday and she was as cheerful and healthy as ever!  (At least, as far as 94-year-olds on oxygen go.)

By the way, I finally made the church recordings of Indra and me into YouTube tracks.  So if you'd like to give them a listen, here they are!  We're singing in English, French, German, and even Italian!  (The last one is my favorite--Indra's high note at the end gives me goosebumps.)

"Evening Rise," a Native American folk song (which was the first duet Indra taught me)

"Carol of the Bells," aka "Ukrainian Christmas Carol"

"Vois sur ton chemin" ("Look upon your way") from Les Choristes.  These lyrics were so tricky!

"O du Liebe meiner Liebe" ("O love of my love") a Good Friday piece by J.S. Bach

"Lascia ch'io pianga" from the opera Rinaldi, by G.F. Händel (I love this one!)

And now . . . since I've got to wrap this blog up and get back to my life in SoCal, I'll leave you all with some final thoughts on what I learned during the past five months.

Practical stuff . . .

• I now know how to cook and do laundry without having to ask Mom questions every step of the way.  And, as most of you probably figured out, I discovered that I really love cooking!  (I'm making crêpes for family dinner tomorrow night.)
• I also know how to book transportation and lodging online, how to bargain shop at the store, how to balance a budget and do my own banking, how to use an ATM (believe it or not, I'd never really used ATMs before this semester), how to change foreign currencies for traveling, and other boring-but-important skills.
• I now have a much better idea of what it will take for me to become a successful and professional artist.  The classes and especially the exhibition at HAW really filled in some gaps in my art education that I hadn't even known existed.  Marni also did a lot to help me understand what skills I'll need in order to successfully market my work.  I've decided that my next step will be to set up a website where I can have an online portfolio, as well as a blog or Facebook page to post new work.  (If you would like me to send you the links to these once I've finished them, please email me at rachelstanley22@gmail.com.)
• I learned that it really is possible to travel solo and live to tell about it.  I won't deny I had a couple of scary experiences, but I learned a lot from those, and it was worth the hassle, the time, and the money in order to be able to see new places.  I still can't believe I actually WENT to Paris and London!!!  Seeing those beautiful cities--and having the freedom to explore them on my own--was an experience I'll remember for the rest of my life.

Personal-growth stuff . . .

• I learned a lot about generosity from the people I met, both Christians and non-Christians.  Anja was surprised when I told her that a lot of Europeans seem really generous, because she said that in general she had experienced more generosity and kindness from Americans.  I'm not sure if God just blessed this undeserving student with some unusually generous people or what, but after meeting Ineke, Marni, Petra, Indra and her parents, the old gentleman at Le Procope, and everybody at City Light, I've definitely been challenged to show more generosity with everything I have . . . not just my money or my possessions, but my time.  I think taking time to show someone you care is a really important thing to do, and it's a habit I need to develop further.
• Since my home church here in California has dealt with some rough circumstances over the past few years, it was encouraging to be at City Light, a church that is still so new, because of the clarity of their vision.  They haven't lost sight of their goal or gotten bogged down with major issues yet because they've only been together for a year.  There was a lot of focus on evangelism, on the cross, on glorifying God, and on prayer.  I think that all the struggles at my home church had caused me to forget what being a Christian is truly about--knowing Jesus and making Him known--and God used my time at City Light to help me regain my focus.  I came back from Hamburg with a fresh reminder of how I ought to be living as a Christian and as a member of the church body.
• I learned that we really can trust God to provide EVERYTHING.  There is a little saying I've heard since I was young: "Where God guides, He provides."  I've always thought that particular saying sounded so silly and cliché, but over the course of my trip I found the concept to be 100 percent true.  There are so many promises throughout the Bible that talk about God's faithfulness, and I saw God take care of my biggest problems down to my smallest needs.  He sent me Marni to challenge me mentally and artistically and to be a travel buddy for me (I am still SO incredibly thankful she was with me in Kraków!); put me in a nice, clean, quiet student apartment with super nice roommates; gave me a super-close friend in Indra who became almost like a sister to me and who would talk with me about everything and anything; connected me with everyone from City Light so I had a spiritual family while I was away from everyone in California; and He even worked out schedule details so I was able to spend time with a lot of different people and still travel and stay on top of schoolwork.  Whatever I needed, I would pray, because if I needed advice I didn't have Mom and Dad and if there was some crazy situation I had no way to control it.  So I learned to trust Him a lot more.  And I hope that doesn't go away.  I'm still a long way from trusting God fully the way that I should, but I can definitely attest to the fact that God DOES see every one of our needs, big or small, and that He WILL provide for us and take care of all of them if we ask Him!

It is good to give thanks to the LORD,

And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High;

To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning,

And Your faithfulness every night . . .

For You, O LORD, have made me glad through Your work;

I will triumph in the works of Your hands.

O LORD, how great are Your works!

Psalm 92:1-2,4-5

THANK YOU to everybody who followed my adventures in Hamburg (and all over Europe) over the past five months.  I truly appreciated all the cards, emails, blog comments, Facebook messages, and everything else you sent.  And if you were praying for me, especially when I was sick in Poland, thank you so much!  The prayers were answered!!!  Thank you, Mom, Dad, Joanna, and Emily, for letting me take off and live on the other side of the world for a whole semester--I know it took some adjustment!  And thank you, Shelly and Nora, for being amazing enough to give me time off work to do this and for encouraging me every step of the way.  (Shelly, I wouldn't have gone if it hadn't been for you!)

So here we go . . . the next leg of the adventure.  Fall 2014 semester back at CSULB!

As they say in Hamburg . . .

"Tchüß!"

And I'm home!!!!! Hello, Seal Beach!

My last picture in front of the Rathaus

I actually got home last night, but the past 24 hours have been such a whirlwind of catching up with family and friends that I haven't had time to sit down and write this until now.

Yesterday morning I got up around 7:30, had breakfast, finished clearing out and tidying up the bathroom, then took the train downtown one last time.  I went to St. Katharinen, which is the one main downtown church I'd never gotten around to visiting, and then walked past the St. Nikolai memorial.  This church was mostly destroyed during the bombing in WWII, but the tower spire was still standing so they took away the rubble and left the remaining church walls and the spire as a memorial.  (Apparently when it was completed in 1874, the modern Neo-Gothic spire was the tallest building in the world.  It held this record for two years until the restored Rouen cathedral tower in France passed it up.)  From there I walked back to the Rathausmarkt, said one last goodbye to the Rathaus and all the buildings around it, and then caught the train back to Georgi-Haus to finish packing up my stuff.

I finished cleaning out my cupboard and put all my leftover food in Indra's cupboard and fridge.  Then I packed my last apple and the last of my dried mango, sesame crackers, and chocolate in my lunch sack for snacks on the trip home.  Right then Cindy (my friend from Virginia) came upstairs to say goodbye, because I told her I was leaving at 11.  She came in my room and we were talking while I jammed the last of my stuff into my suitcase.  Then Kenneth arrived, and he and Cindy ended up sort of conversing while I ran around in circles shoving things into my backpacks and throwing away the last of my papers and other trash.  Cindy gave me a goodbye hug and left right then because she had packing-up stuff to do as well, and Kenneth helped me finish checking my room for any items that might be hiding.  When we were sure I had everything, we went downstairs and I took my room key to Herr Haberland, the housing manager, who went back up to the apartment with me to make sure everything was clean and in order.  He whistled when he saw how clean the bathroom was.  (I had wiped the shelves and sink, cleaned the shower and toilet, and even vacuumed the bath mat, so it looked spick-and-span!)

Once Herr Haberland had inspected my bedroom, bathroom, refrigerator, and cupboard, he told me I was good to go.  Kenneth and I took my suitcase and backpacks and walked to Saarlandstraße (for me it was the last time!).  It was easier than taking Petra's suitcases had been, but my bag was still heavy and I was sure it would be over the weight limit of 23 kg when I checked it in.  I was mentally preparing to shell out 50 euros extra to pay the overweight-luggage fee.  When I finally got to the ticket counter at the airport, the clerk printed my tickets for me and then asked me to put my bag on the conveyor belt.  I did, and she told me, "Thank you, that's all."

"Wait, that's it?  Is my bag over the weight limit?"  I asked.

"No, it's 22 kilos," she answered, "so you're fine."

I've already had it proven to me a thousand ways during the past five months, but this was just one more reminder that God is absolutely awesome!  I walked away from the ticket counter wanting to crack up.  "That's the praise report of the day!"  I told Kenneth.  "I was sure I was going to have to pay the overweight fee!"  He was like, "O-kay . . ."

At the security gate, we hugged goodbye and said, "See you in two days!  Have a nice flight!" because Kenneth is coming to Long Beach on Friday!  I'm so excited he (and also his friends Cynthia and Julia) will be at CSULB for fall semester--it will be great to hang out more and hopefully do some fun stuff in the L.A. area.  I promised Kenneth a trip to In-N-Out, since he introduced me to Jim Block.

Auf Wiedersehen, Hamburg . . .

Anyway, I went through security and got on my flight.  I had the window seat and it felt so weird as we were gaining altitude to look back and see Hamburg fading into the distance below me.  This was my home for five months, and I was sad to be going away from it.

The flight was quick.  I spent most of it reading Momo, the children's sci-fi book Indra gave to me as a parting gift.  (It's a really cute and interesting book, by the way.)  I saw the mouth of the Thames when we started to fly over England, and when we started coming down over London I saw all the bridges, skyscrapers, and the London Eye from really high up.  When we were circling to get low enough to land, I looked towards the north to see if I could see St. Albans, but there were so many fields and towns and rail lines that I didn't know where it was exactly and I couldn't spot it.

Really nice, smooth landing at Heathrow.  It took me a bit to get through the security lines, and I only had an hour between connecting flights, so I had to jam to get to my gate.  But the plane turned out to be one of those huge double-deckers that holds like 400 people, and the boarding line was a mile long, so I ended up being fine.  It took forever to board all the passengers, and then after that the electrical system on the plane had some kind of error and they had to shut off all the power and then reboot the system before they could leave the gate.  So our flight was delayed leaving almost an hour.

The flight was surprisingly good.  The plane was full, but nobody around me was noisy and the staff was friendly.  And they served us dinner and then had a few hours of "sleep time" where they closed all the window shades.  So the ten hours actually passed really quickly.  It only felt like four or five hours, to be honest.  I sat next to a guy on the plane who lives in L.A. but is Lebanese, and he had just spent the last couple of months visiting family in Beirut.  We had some nice conversations, and he was a really mellow seatmate and slept for quite a while, so that helped the time pass quickly too.  I watched Saving Mr. Banks and Noah on my seat-back video screen, and took a nap in between.  The dinner they served was the best airline food I've had so far--curry chicken and rice, with a bean salad and a yummy lemon torte.  And the post-sleep snack Go British Airways!

Unfortunately, my quick flight connection at Heathrow meant that my suitcase didn't make it onto the plane home.  So I waited at the baggage claim for like half an hour and then finally asked a staff member where my bag was, and she said it was still en route and it would come on another plane.  So I had to go to the British Airways counter and give them my address and a bag description so they could deliver it to my house when it came in.  At least they are going to deliver it rather than making me pick it up myself, but man, was it frustrating!  I knew Mom had probably waiting for me for almost two hours by then, and the line at the BA counter was so slow.

At long last I emerged into the pickup area.  It took me a few minutes to find Mom and my sisters because a China Airlines flight had just come in and the terminal was crowded.  Actually, they saw me first.  I spotted Emily's colored hair (right now she has it bleached to a sort of reddish-blond) and her arms waving, and then I saw Joanna and Mom.  They had been waiting for over an hour, but not quite as long as I had thought.  They'd checked the flight status and knew it was delayed, so they had arrived at the airport later.  It took everyone's frayed nerves a few minutes to settle.  But by the time we were home, we were all happy again.  I was surprised at how familiar everything felt.  It was like no time had passed at all.  I felt like I'd never left!  And even though I'd been sad to leave Hamburg, it was incredibly good to be home and to be with my family.  We had late-night cupcakes and a gift exchange since it was Joanna's 21st birthday!  When we finally went to bed it was super late.  But I was so happy as I got in bed.  To be honest, the past 24 hours I haven't missed Hamburg at all.  I love Hamburg, of course, but there's no place like home, as they say, and right now I'm perfectly content to be back in California now that I'm here.

Today has been fun!  Went swimming at the pool today, saw Shelly and Nora (my managers) and some of the lap swimmers, and met all the new lifeguards on staff.  This afternoon our friends Myles, Joe, Octavio, and Jason all came by our house, one after the other, so Emily could give them haircuts.  She got her cosmetology license this week!  Her state board test was on Monday and she passed, so now she's official!  Aunt Nadia also came by to say hi, and I called Grandma at the rest home to tell her I was back safe.  Family dinner, worship practice for Bible study, and family prayer time for the first time in five months!  I'm perfectly content to be a California girl again, at least for now.

Still a few last things to come on this blog.  Stay tuned . . .

The house under construction

Wanted to share this because it's been a small, but very cool, part of my semester here . . .

Hamburg is a very rapidly growing city, and one of the first things I noticed when I came here was all the huge building projects going on everywhere.  If you go up on top of the planetarium at the Stadtpark and look out across the city, you see big cranes sticking up all over the place.  Over the past five months, I've had a front-row seat to one of the many Hamburg construction projects: an apartment building has been going up just across the yard from my bedroom window.

I've been watching the progress on what will be the back side of the house.  When I first got here in February, the building only had two floors and there was a gigantic crane filling the sky outside.  Now, five months later, it's a complete apartment building with six floors, and although it's still not finished, it's been incredible watching it take shape over the semester.

And as I've watched it being built, looking out the kitchen window at it every morning while I'm reading my Bible and eating my cereal, I've developed a sort of fondness for this new building (even though the construction workers very often wake me up early with their power tools and their calling back and forth to each other), because I've started to see a connection between what is going on with that building and what is going on with my own life.

The earlier phases: adding the floors with the help
of a crane and building the walls

I always thought those "Life under construction--God isn't finished with me yet!" stickers were kind of silly, but the longer I watched this apartment coming together, the more I realized how true that concept is.  It takes a lot of time for us to become who God wants us to be, and the "construction project" isn't really complete until we get to heaven.  Our whole lives, from beginning to end, are a sort of "building" process, and each phase of life adds more pieces to the "building" so that it gets closer to becoming the complete structure it's supposed to be.  I feel like this semester in Hamburg was a major growth phase for me, both in who I am as a person and who I am as a follower of Christ.  I learned lots of practical skills--cooking, money management, printmaking, career preparation, a little bit of German--but I also grew spiritually for sure.  I saw God provide for me in ways I never could have expected or asked for, which proved to me even more than before that I can, and should, trust Him with everything--from the big, complicated stuff to the most trivial things.  I gained a fresh perspective on evangelism and on the basic vision and goal of a church body by being at City Light.  I also saw God put me in the paths of specific people at specific times, so that they could help me when I needed it or so that I could help them when they needed it.  And I learned a lot about generosity from the people I met--Anja said the other day when I told her about this that people in Europe generally just stay on their own program and don't interact with others much, but that wasn't my experience at all.  After meeting Ineke, Indra and her parents, and everybody at City Light, I've felt like I need to work harder at being generous to other people, especially with my time.  I saw this semester how much it can mean to somebody for you to just take time to hang out with them.

Anyway, I wish I could see the finished house, but like my own life, there are still more phases to come.  I asked Indra to send me a photo of it when it's all done.  I wonder what my "finished project" will look like when God is finally done with me . . . thankfully He's the builder, not me, so as long as I stay with Him I should turn out okay!

The later building phases: adding plaster and brick to
the outside.  I'm sure lots is going on inside too!

Today I wanted to go downtown for a final drawing day, but it didn't work out.  I had to go to Haspa to close my bank account, and it took me probably eight hours total to clear out my room and pack everything.  It was harder than I'd expected--I've got a lot more stuff now than I did when I came, and even though I'm leaving a lot of it (I'm giving Indra and Corina my leftover food and leaving a big bag of toiletries and other stuff for them to use if they need it), I still could barely make things fit.  Praise the Lord, my suitcase was JUST big enough for all my printmaking portfolios and my U2 poster . . . if they were any bigger they wouldn't have gone inside.  At something like 7:30, I made crêpes for dinner to use up my last egg and then I finally took a walk at 9.  I couldn't decide at first where to go, but I finally decided to do my route down the canal to the Alster and back one last time.  It was really humid today and there were a ton of people out because the night was so warm.  Felt soooo good to get out, and it was an absolutely beautiful evening, but the fact that this was my last time walking it made it kind of surreal.

Also ran to the post office and mailed off the portrait of the couple I met at St. Pauli.  I told them to pay me for it online once they receive it.  Hopefully it will meet with their approval!

Got to get to bed.  Tomorrow will be a long day!  Kenneth is coming at 11 to go with me to the airport.  My flight leaves at 2:20 pm Hamburg time.  I'll have about an hour-long layover in London, which gives me enough time to get through customs, and then comes the LOOOONG flight back to L.A.  I'll land at LAX around 7:30 California time.  Do the math . . . how many hours long does that make my day?  (If you can figure it out, you win the gold star!)  Anyhow, I've got to say I'm looking forward to heading home.  This apartment has gotten eerily quiet with Indra and Petra gone, and my room is so empty that it doesn't feel like home anymore.  I can't wait to be back with my family and to see everyone at church, at Bible study, and at the pool!

The last few farewells (I hope!)

Got up early this morning to see Petra off to the airport.  It was a good thing I went with her, because she had two rolling suitcases and a duffel, all of which were really heavy.  If she had gone to the airport alone, she would have had to get a taxi to the train station, because even with each of us rolling only one suitcase it took us forever to get to Saarlandstraße, and by the time we got there our hands almost had blisters from the friction of trying to support the weight while we were pulling the suitcases.  A couple of nice guys helped us carry them up the stairs at Saarlandstraße, which has no elevators.  After that it was easier because the Barmbek and Airport stations have elevators and escalators we could use, but it was still a big relief to turn them in at the baggage check-in!  Petra had to pay extra because the bags were over the 50-pound limit, but she didn't care.  She said she would rather pay more than try to transfer it all over to her carry-ons and have to drag the extra weight around.

Roomies!

I saw her off at the security line, just like I did for Indra.  I felt bad for not having a card for her though--I was going to make one yesterday and I just ran out of time.  I'll send her a nice love note in the mail once we are both back home.  This time it wasn't quite to say goodbye as it had been to say goodbye to Indra, mostly because I know Petra will have her family to go home to just like I will, and neither of us will have to stay in the same place and wait to see what new roommates will come in to replace old ones, like Indra will have to.  Or maybe now I'm just getting numb to all of it . . . on the train Petra said, "This is so weird.  It doesn't even seem real."  I agree--it doesn't seem possible for the semester to be over already.  But of course, none of this stuff can be helped.  All good things must come to an end, as the old saying goes, and right now this phase of good times is winding down.

It felt really odd to get back home.  It was around 8:30 so I had breakfast, put a load of laundry in the wash, and then took a nap since I was tired from lack of sleep the last couple of nights.  When I woke up I still felt the same--everything seemed odd.  The apartment just doesn't feel the same without Petra and Indra there.  It doesn't even seem like the same place anymore, and Hamburg doesn't feel like Hamburg anymore now that I've said goodbye to all the people I got to know.  In a way I want to spend tomorrow walking around and seeing all my favorite places one last time, but in another way I don't.  I don't think it will feel like it did before.  This city was my home for the past five months, but suddenly my whole routine, and my whole room, are so jumbled up that it doesn't feel like home now.  My mind is shifting gears back to California, and now that I'm basically on my own here, I'm more than ready to get on the plane and head back to my California home.  But Hamburg did feel like home while I lived here, and I can definitely think of it as a second home, one that I could come back to if the chance arose.

I spent the next four or so hours cleaning.  This past week it was my turn for kitchen duty, but I had slacked off a little bit and I hadn't swept and mopped the floor or taken out all the trash like I was supposed to do.  They divide the trash into four categories in Germany, by the way: Buntglas (glass containers), Altpapier (paper and cardboard), Verpackungen (plastic, foil, and other packaging), and Restmüll (everything else including kitchen waste).  So anyway, I did those things and I also cleaned out the fridge Petra and I shared.  I took out and washed the shelves and drawers and wiped out the inside (and found a moldy old knife at the back behind the shelf, eww).  Then I started organizing my food that I had left.  I took the things I knew I was done with and put them in Indra's cupboard (tea, spices, baking ingredients, etc.) for her to use.  She is going to inherit a lot of food from me when I finish going through my cupboard, because I ended up with a lot of pasta, rice, frozen veggies, and baking supplies that I wasn't able to use up.  At some point I took a quick lunch break and ate an apple and half a PB&J sandwich.

Next I tackled the bathroom.  I wiped off the shelves, the sink, and the faucet to get all the soap scum and dust off, and I vacuumed the floor and the bath mat.  I also cleaned the toilet and put shower cleaner in the shower.  At that point I had to stop in the middle of my cleaning, because Ninni (my Finnish friend from the Berlin weekend) and I had planned to meet at 4 to go to Hamburger Dom.  So I got my clothes out of the dryer, switched my bed linens over from the washer to the dryer, threw my stuff into my backpack and took off to catch the train to St. Pauli.

Today was a nice hot summer day, and the Dom was open and in full swing (quite the opposite of that day in April when it was cold and rainy and we tried to go to the spring Dom and found it closed!).  It is at Heiligengeistfeld, the same place where they had the public viewings for the World Cup.  Ninni and I just walked around and talked and looked at everything for maybe an hour and a half.  The Dom is definitely more reasonable than the California county fairs back home, because there is no admission fee and multiple entrances, and you can just walk onto the fairgrounds and hang out there if you want. And while the prices for food and rides aren't exactly cheap, they're not nearly as outrageous as the prices at American fairs.  The whole place is basically a giant maze of rides and food, just like American fairs, but I still noticed some small and interesting differences.  Because everything is of course German, the food and rides aren't identical to American ones.  For example, instead of Chicken Charlie's deep-fried bonanza, they have stands selling German doughnut-style baked goods, such as Berliners and Quarkbällchen.  Or instead of having Southern barbecue, they have traditional German fare like wurst and potato salad.  There were a lot of places selling crêpes, pretzels, Northern German fish sandwiches (like Fischbrötchen!), or candied fruit.  Some things were exactly the same as in America, though: ice cream and slushies, sweet popcorn, and (of course) cotton candy.  Also, some of the rides have German or Hamburg themes.  There were a few pirate- or harbor-related rides, and one with some of the Beatles' music.  I also saw a scary ride called "Tanz der Vampire," after the famous German musical Indra told me about.  And then there was the Wilde Maus, the roller coaster which I actually rode once upon a time at the Orange County Fair but didn't realize was German!

Ninni and I didn't ride any rides, not even the Ferris wheel, because we didn't want to pay for them, but I did buy a pretzel (because believe it or not, I never had one the whole time I was here and I decided it would be a crime to leave Germany without eating one) and Ninni bought two pickles.  We did two loops around the whole fairgrounds and then decided a salad sounded more appetizing than fair food, so we walked to the Variable restaurant (where we had gone the other time) and had salads.  We took our time and sat talking for a while after we had finished.  We talked about our semesters and what we were hoping to do when we go back home, and I also told Ninni about homeschooling and how it works (because in a lot of European countries homeschooling is not allowed).  Then we had to leave because a party arrived and they had reserved our table and the tables around us.  So we walked back through the fair and then down to Landungsbrücken, and we strolled along the wharf with all the ferries and restaurants for a bit.  When it got to be 9 o'clock, we went to the train station at Landungsbrücken because I needed to get home and finish organizing things.  We hugged goodbye (reluctantly) and finally parted ways.  I'll miss Ninni's smiling face!  She is really a neat person.  When I first met her I thought she was shy and serious, but actually she isn't shy, just mellow and sort of quiet, and she actually smiles and laughs a lot, especially once you get to know her a bit.  I wish we'd had more time to hang out this semester, but we were at different campuses so I think we were on two completely different programs as far as schedules and classes went.

Landungsbrücken

I have to say, between Tiina, Siru, and Ninni, I definitely want to visit Finland now!  If the majority of Finns are like those three, then I think I would really enjoy visiting their country.  I liked spending time with Tiina, Siru, and Ninni because they never got crazy or obnoxious, even if alcohol was present, and even when they complained it was generally a good-natured "oh well" sort of complaining.  I got a good impression of the Finns from them.

Anyway, my bed is still not made and I still haven't showered and my eyes are falling shut, so that's it from me for the moment.  Gute Nacht!

The hardest goodbyes

This morning when my alarm went off at 7, I woke up to another summer thunderstorm.  It was surreal, like one of those sad good-bye scenes in movies.  Indra was ready to go at 7:45.  I ate some cereal and we left at 8 for the airport.  Thankfully the rain had let up by then, and by the time we got to the airport the sun was coming out.  Indra helped me write a goodbye note in German for Martin and Ivanna's card.  I made cards for everybody at City Light last night, and most of them I wrote in English, but Martin and Ivanna still mostly speak German and I didn't have the know-how to say what I wanted to say.  With Indra's help, though, we got it done fast, and we finished just as the train was arriving at the airport.

Indra checked her bag and printed her boarding pass, but she was still so early that we had time to sit down and hang out for a bit.  (She believes in being at least two hours early whenever she travels because she doesn't want to take even a remote chance on missing a flight due to a slow train or something.)  We talked on a bench for probably 20 minutes, and then I realized it was already after 9 and I had to be at City Light by 9:45.  So we took one last picture of ourselves together (strategically located in front of the Hamburg announcement screen when Der König der Löwen was flashing by) and then I walked with her to the security line.

Then came the dreaded moment: saying goodbye to each other.  I gave her the farewell note I made her last night.  It wasn't colorful or super fancy--instead it was a paper airplane with little pen drawings on the outside and a note written inside (and a Kleenex tucked in too).  I had been trying to think of what to draw for a goodbye card, and nothing seemed to be meaningful enough.  But when I remembered the scene from Les Choristes the other night, I knew that a paper-airplane note would probably be more meaningful than even a card with green and gold and a forest fantasy scene would be.

When I gave it to Indra, she got all teary and then we hugged each other at least four times and stood there, with neither of us wanting to be the one to end it and walk away.  (I could just imagine Marni standing next to us watching the scene and saying, "Come on, ladies, quit prolonging the agony and just leave each other already!"  Marni has a strong aversion to prolonged and emotional goodbyes.)  I finally sent Indra off to the line to have her passport checked, but then she went through all the rows and had to go back past me again to get to the security line.  So I walked with her along the outside of the rope-belt-thingy, and then she started humming "Les Avions en Papier," which is from the paper-airplane scene.  I was like, "Oh no, stop, now you're going to make me cry too!"  We ended up hugging again across the access gate, and she said, "I'm going to miss you so much!"  I said, "I will too!" but finally I let go and said, "Okay, I won't prolong the agony anymore.  I'm going now."

Boy, it was hard to walk away though.  She looked so forlorn standing in the line with her blue shirt and green backpack.  I ended up peeking back over my shoulder and watching from far away until they opened another security line and she went through it with some other people.  I didn't exactly cry on my way back down to the train, but I felt like I had a big hole in my stomach.

I just missed the train leaving the airport and had to wait a while for it, and then at the next station (Ohlsdorf) I had to change to U1 to get to City Light and I just missed that train too.  So it was after 9:45 when I came winging into the building, and I only had a couple of minutes to get my ducks in a row and organize all my worship papers before the service started.

Praise the Lord, the worship went well though, and it was a really good service.  Joey talked today about the next step for City Light, because last week they finished talking about the vision and goals (the stuff I did the drawings for back in March) and next week they're starting the gospel of John.  He had us look at Ephesians 2:10 and was talking about how none of us ended up coming to Hamburg by accident.  God put each of us there for a specific purpose.  And I have no doubt that God had a reason for putting me in Germany, in Hamburg, in Georgi-Haus, in apartment 30 with Indra and Petra and everybody else.  I think Indra and I were both exactly what the other person needed this semester, even though we didn't realize we needed it at first.  We both needed somebody with whom we could be ourselves, somebody who shared our interests, somebody with whom we got along really well, somebody whom we could talk to at any time about pretty much anything, and we found that friend in each other.  I think only God could pair up two people so well, and I think that all the people I met this semester, from Indra to everyone at City Light, were not put there by coincidence.  God caused our paths to cross, because He has a plan.  I still don't know what the end result of my meeting each of these people will be, but I know God is at work!  Anyway, Joey had us spend the last half hour or so praying for each other and for the people we know who don't know God yet.

Everybody was so nice--they gave me a goodbye card and a book about 40 influential Christians in history, and Joey and Janos had me come up to the front and prayed for me.  I gave them the big goodbye card that I made.  It's bittersweet to be going home, because I'll really miss everyone at City Light.  They seriously have become a second church family to me, and I love all of them.  I've gotten so used to seeing them every week, and I think it will be weird at first to not see them on Sundays when I'm back in California.  But praise the Lord, we live in the era of Facebook and email, so we can stay in touch, and I'll be excited to hear what God does through City Light over the next few months and years!  Yesterday when I was in the Stadtpark, I had a really cool thought which I ended up sharing during worship this morning.

I had been walking and thinking about how different the park looks now from how it looked when I first got to Hamburg in February.  Back when Indra first took me on a walk there, it was cold and dreary, the trees and flowerbeds were bare, and there were hardly any people there at all.  When Indra had told me about everyone having barbecues and swimming in the summer, I hadn't been able to imagine it.  But then yesterday, there I was, walking through the Stadtpark in the middle of summer, and it was warm and sunny, and everything was green, and the flowerbeds were in full bloom, and the lawns and the See and the Naturbad and the Biergartens were full of people barbecuing, tanning, playing games, swimming, canoeing, listening to music, eating and drinking, etc.  The place which had looked so dead five months ago was now so alive.  I started thinking how Hamburg might be kind of like that, in a spiritual sense.  Right now, City Light is small, and even though Hamburg is a beautiful city on the outside, it's basically a spiritually dead city.  Everything is dormant, and right now it looks like growth and life can never happen.  But with time, as God goes to work, Hamburg can bloom and flourish into a spiritual summer and become full of life, just like the Stadtpark.  I pray that, as time passes, everyone at City Light will see God doing that work through their church!

Me, Ivanna, Rebecca, and Elaine

After the service we cleaned everything up and locked the building, and I said my final goodbyes to Joey & Rebecca, Martin & Ivanna, Benjamin, and the others.  They were all joking that I need to move to Hamburg, and then we wouldn't have to be sad about being far apart.  I gave goodbye cards to Joey & Rebecca and Martin & Ivanna.  Then Elaine, Kelly, and I went with Janos and Glorie (his 3-year-old daughter) in the car to Janos & Anja's house for lunch and hangout time.  (Kelly just got here last week from North Carolina.  She is doing a year-long nannying job for a family in the Hoheluftbrücke neighborhood, and she found City Light and decided it was a good church to go to while she is living here.  She's a year younger than Elaine and me, and she just finished her teaching degree this past year.)  I was so glad to get to spend some time with Anja and Elaine especially before I leave, because I haven't seen them much lately.  Elaine always works super late Saturday nights and Anja has to stay home with 1-year-old Ella while she naps, so they can't always make it to church on Sunday mornings.  So we had planned a late lunch for after church.

Janos, Anja, Ella, Glorie, and me doing "Peace Out"

And our "happy" picture! (The girls decided to
do more of a "poker face" at the moment.)

It was an absolute feast!  Anja made Knödel (traditional German potato-and-bread dumplings) Rotkohl (cooked red cabbage in vinegar), a rucola salad, and a chicken-and-bell-pepper dish with yummy butter sauce.  I made another loaf of basil-pistachio bread last night to bring, and that was a surprisingly big hit (even Glorie and Ella were chowing down on it!  Ella made crumbs everywhere), and then after that Anja brought out coffee, tea, and watermelon slices and after that she brought out apple strudel and vanilla ice cream.  It was all so good, and we had a really nice afternoon.  Things were a bit chaotic, of course, because Glorie had to go down for her nap in the middle and Ella kept eating watermelon and dripping it everywhere, and it was also really humid and sticky so Anja ended up changing Ella's shirt probably four times.  That's life with a 1- and 3-year-old.  But it didn't matter--the girls are super cute, and we had a lot of time to talk, so it was a very good way to spend my last Sunday in Hamburg.  We didn't leave their house until after 6.  I was sad to say goodbye to Janos & Anja too--they have been a huge encouragement and inspiration to me while I was here.  Glorie was also sad that I was leaving.  She tends to be really shy, but Janos told me that she calls me "Wachel" and she is always asking him if I am going to come when they have a church service.  Janos drove us girls to the closest train station, and Glorie was looking kind of upset as he carried her to the car.  "Muss nicht traurig sein," he told her. ("Don't be sad.")  It reminded me of our first weekend in Holstein when we said "Tchuss" to Luna at the train station, and she cried because she didn't want us to go away.

Me and Elaine . . . I'll miss this girl!!

I got home around 7, and I didn't really have to eat dinner after all that yummy food at Janos & Anja's.  My only "dinner" consisted of some frozen grapes, a spoonful of peanut butter, half a slice of bread, and a sesame cracker, all munched at intervals between 7 and 9:30 while I started on packing up my room.  Still got a lot more to do, but at least the task is started.  It's incredible how much stuff you can accumulate in one semester!

Petra leaves early tomorrow morning, and I"m getting up to see her off at the airport, so I've got to go to bed.  Not enough sleep last night either, due to being up working on making cards for everybody.

It was definitely a bittersweet day.  The goodbyes were hard.  But it was a good day too.  If I had to have a last Sunday in Hamburg, this was a nice one.  Praise the Lord for everyone at City Light, and for Indra and Petra too!  It's been so great getting to know all of them!  I'll miss them like crazy!

Preparing for goodbyes

Today was kind of a strange day--Indra was getting ready to leave and because it was Saturday everybody was home and going in and out.  Petra and I went and got döners for lunch, which we had been planning to do at some point before we go home.  But it was just sort of a painful day because I know tomorrow I'll have to say goodbye to Indra, and when I leave Hamburg that will mean leaving her too.  To be honest, I was up crying at 3 am last night because I kept thinking of the scene in Les Choristes where the boys throw paper airplanes out the window of the school to say goodbye to their teacher.

Getting to know people and developing deep friendships is one of the most precious and amazing things you can do in life, but sometimes that also makes saying goodbye ridiculously hard to do.

During the afternoon I took a walk in the Stadtpark, just to clear my mind and to see it in all its summer beauty at least one more time, and swam in the Stadtparksee for a bit before coming back home.  I made another loaf of my basil-pistachio bread to take to Janos & Anja's house tomorrow, since I am going to have dinner with them tomorrow night for a farewell.  Elaine is supposed to be there too, which is great because I wasn't sure I'd get to see her before I left.  Indra and I also watched Dragon Heart, which was slightly reminiscent of The Princess Bride, only much less corny and more emotionally intense.  I liked it . . . never would have thought Dennis Quaid could pull off a medieval knight role, but he did a pretty good job!

Tomorrow I am playing worship one more time for City Light!  I've been so blessed to be part of the service by doing that . . . it felt weird to just be coming on Sundays and not helping out with anything.  I'm really looking forward to tomorrow, though of course I'm sorry to be leaving everyone at City Light too.  They've become my second church family, and while I can't wait to see everyone in my church family in California, I'll miss my family in Hamburg!

A very musical day with Indra

Indra finally suggested imagining the swirl on the wrought-iron gate
was a letter "t" to help me remember "TOUT au bout du chemin" . . .
sounds odd, but believe it or not, that tactic actually worked!  

Today we had no opportunity to go to the Stadtpark.  It was rainy all day, and in the afternoon there was another thunderstorm (though much less dramatic than yesterday's).  Indra and I went again to St. Sophien, the Catholic church nearby, to make a second attempt at recording ourselves singing.  This time there were no services and nobody in the church since it was the middle of a Friday.  The iron gates to the sanctuary were locked, but because the sanctuary is connected with the foyer area that has the prayer benches and altar, we were able to sing through the bars and still get the full church-echo sound.  This church isn't huge, but it is big enough to make a super-beautiful echo without voices getting lost.  We were there for at least two hours recording.  We sang every duet and classical-style song we could think of, and we made some really nice recordings of "Carol of the Bells," "Evening Rise" (the one she taught me at the start of the semester), "Lascia ch'io pianga" by Händel, "O du Liebe meiner Liebe" by J.S. Bach (she taught me this one more recently and it is in German!), and "Vois sur ton chemin" from Les Choristes (the French film we watched last week).  It took me forever to do that last one without messing up--French can be SUCH a tongue twister!--but in the end, with Indra's help, I finally was able to remember all the words and do it right.  The line that kept tripping me up was "Une lumière dorée brille sans fin tout au bout du chemin."  (That means something like "a golden light shines endlessly at the end of the road.")  SO tricky!!!

St. Sophien has such beautiful windows . . .

The recordings have a lot of miscues and talking in them, so Indra has to edit them before she can put any on YouTube or anything.  Her editing program did something weird and put too much bass in the files, so currently some of the recordings don't sound right.  But hopefully at some point I'll be able to post a few on here, because they sounded really, really nice in that church.

 When we got home, all plans of a dinner picnic were off because it was still raining.  So Indra did a special oil and conditioning treatment on her hair and I went to the store to get some stuff for a sort of indoor-picnic-style dinner.  The walk to and from the store was nice, because even though it was raining it was a nice comfortable temperature outside.  (All the way there and back, I sang "Vois sur ton chemin" over and over to be sure I had those tricky lines drilled into my head!)

I got two boxes of grapes (they were super-low price at Aldi so I bought two to freeze some--I've been eating frozen grapes nonstop the last few weeks!), and also some canned tuna and baguettes, at the store, and between us we had green olives, Swiss cheese, tomatoes, and lettuce.  We sliced the baguettes and put tuna, cheese, and olives on them, and then toasted them in the oven.  (This was Indra's recipe.)  It was yummy, and we ate almost one whole box of grapes too!  And of course we listened to Der König der Löwen on Indra's mp3 player.

After dinner we watched Mulan, because Indra had the songs from it on her player too, and when they came on it reminded us of the movie.  We watched it in English though, because I have only seen it a few times and I couldn't remember the dialogue very well.

Tomorrow is my last day to hang out with Indra . . . I don't want to think about it . . . but at least we've had a fun week together.

Oh, one really funny random thing: Indra told me and Petra that there is a German exclamation that is so random it's hilarious.  It is "Heiliger Strohsack!" which literally means, "Holy straw sack!"  She doesn't know where it came from, it's just one of those colloquial expressions.  How random is that?  And I thought "holy cow" was funny . . .

Here's one more picture of St. Sophien.  It really is a lovely church, with a lovely sound to match!