Back in Minnesota

Almost one week ago I made the journey back to Minnesota, completing this semester-long adventure in Europe. The closing weeks and days in Freiburg were a lot of fun, but sad too. The weather was beautiful and conducive to outdoor activities such as grilling and playing soccer.

At the end of our academic semester in our program, we held a model European Union summit where each student represented some minister, dignitary or official. I was an EU commissioner. The summit was a lot of fun, and afterwards, IES took us out to eat at the restaurant where the next picture was taken. 
A few days later, after all of our finals were done, IES hosted a bar-b-que at the center where all the students could come together one last time to spend time together. Below is a picture of my german classmates and teacher (third from the left). Our german class met the most often of any class (not including field trips) and so we all got to know each other pretty well.
The next two pictures were taken at my going away party that we held inside my flat's kitchen. The first picture is of all of my roommates and me (from left to right: Alex, Me, Christoph, Benni, and Monti) . I'm holding a poster they made for me that has some memories from throughout the semester and also some cartoon representations of each of us. I really lucked out with these roommates. No one else that I talked to in my program spent as much time together with their roommates hanging out and having fun as I did. 

This picture was another taken from the party. On the right is Konstantin, who studied at my high school back in 11th grade. He is originally from Bonn where I've visited him before, but we lucked out and he now studies molecular biology in Freiburg! It was great being able to hang out with him some more and I hope he is able to make it back to the US to visit again.
I'm not good with grand conclusions, so I'll keep it short. I am now faced with a new challenge. I have to integrate this once in a lifetime experience into my life back in the US. I'm still thinking back over what I experienced and I find it almost surreal. Did that really happen? We'll see how the summer goes and my last year as an undergraduate. The plans after that are not certain and will hopefully come into focus soon.