It’s my last night in Germany, for now. These past couple of days I’ve felt a little down knowing that we would be going home. Then, at the same time, I’m excited to come home again. I’m a bit kerflummoxed.

I’ve learned a couple of things about Germany, things I don’t remember from before. German culture expects that people have common sense. American culture does not. Here dogs are allowed to go almost anywhere with their owners (stores, coffee shops, you name it). In museums artwork is literally within arm’s reach, with only a couple of people working on each floor in the museum. Germans simply expect people to have respect and…to have common sense. At least, this is my impression.

Granted part of common sense is also everyone knowing that litter will happen, which seems to make it more accepted. This means that after New Years the streets are littered with trash. Cigarette butts are everywhere, and broken glass is in between the cobblestones until workers have time to clean it all up. It makes it dirty, but then Frankfurt is a very big city. I haven’t spent much time in big cities in the US, I’m sure that part is fairly similar.

I will miss my friends here. I will miss some of the awesome cultural differences, and the church bells you hear in almost every city, that ring every hour. I’ll miss being able to use public transportation to get pretty much anywhere you want to go. I’ll miss being able to walk pretty much anywhere, and bakeries being a common occurrence.

I hope I get to come back soon. Not only so that I can continue to develop my language abilities, but so that I can continue to learn more about this awesome country I would love to call home one day. Who knows, I’m 30 now. I feel like more of an adult, and that makes me also feel like maybe living in Germany isn’t a dream, but a possible reality.