Waking up this morning, I was filled with many emotions. For one, I was very exhausted and excited to go home, but on the other hand, I was very sad to leave because I had such a great time here. I learned so much not just about Germany, but about myself individually. It was great to get out of my social bubble from Pittsburgh and branch out to a different country. I got a sense of an entirely new culture, and it is an experience I will never forget for the rest of my life. However, it was time to come home, I missed my friends and family.
We arrived at the airport safely, and it was honestly a miracle that we were still alive after 2 weeks of driving with Karl. We got there 3 hours early and I thought I would have time to get something to eat when we got through customs and security, but I was totally wrong. The one thing that shocked me is the amount of passport checks they have at the airport; we even had to have our passport to enter our gate! By the time we arrived at our gate, we only had 20 minutes until we boarded, so I was going to have to wait until the meal on the plane. I slept for about half the flight to DC which felt great, and once we arrived in DC we had to go through customs once again and even check our luggage again which was weird to me.
The customs line was insane at DC, we waited in the line for 2 hours, we were all very nervous that we could miss our flight. I’ve never seen a line go so slow, but thankfully we got out in time and made it to our gate with some time to spare. We boarded the small plane back to Pittsburgh, and as soon as we got in the air I passed out. It felt like a blink of an eye and we were touched down in Pittsburgh, and I was so glad to be home. Walking through the airport, I was most looking forward to a home cooked meal and hanging out with my family. Don’t get me wrong, one of my favorite parts of the trip was the food, but after nonstop bratwurst and schnitzel, I definitely needed a break.
