So here I am in America.

Land of the free condiments. Where toilet paper is not only in ample supply, but double-quilted. Where my limited ability to speak the native language is no longer a viable excuse for romantic rejection.
I'm still not quite ready to accept that things are over, though, so here's some stuff I wrote in Germany:

I think the thing that’s been irritating me about being in Berlin is the same thing that made this visit so necessary: being here shows me how un-special my semester in Russia really was. Spending these few days in this one city in this one country in Europe reminded me of how much there is out there that I haven’t seen and how many languages I still don’t know. I mean, on Christmas Eve I was the only American among Russians, Germans and French people. Everyone at the table except me was fluent in German. Most spoke both German and French, and nearly everyone knew at least a little English. As a speaker of English and an awkward speaker of Russian, I was the least able to hold a conversation of anyone. Not to mention that almost everyone at the table had been to the U.S. and Paris and London and other such places, and all I could say I’d seen in Europe was a few cities in Russia and, uh, Berlin. I came out of Russia feeling totally accomplished, confident and worldly. I will come out of Germany feeling like a mute idiot.
On the plus side, my German has improved during my week here. It makes me think I could learn it relatively easily: there are plenty of English and Russian cognates, and after Russian the grammar will be a walk in the park. My passive vocabulary is sufficient enough to understand what people are talking about most of the time, even if I can’t tell what they’re saying about any given topic of conversation. My active vocabulary is slightly worse. Here are most of the phrases I can say, put in an order that approximates one end of a hypothetical conversation:

--Please
--Thank you
--The chicken is very spicy
--I don’t understand
--I have no idea
--I speak no German
--Do you speak English?
--That is wonderful
--All is clear
--Merry Christmas
--Fuck safely
--Goodbye!

Here’s one of my biggest problems with coming back from study abroad: somewhere in between getting beaten with birch branches by a Russian sailor and club-hopping in Berlin with a bunch of older German guys, I realized that my life has the potential to be—and sometimes is—interesting. I’m not quite ready to give that up for life in (shudder) Claremont, where the most interesting thing that will happen will probably involve my boredom-induced suicide. No matter. I may have to work a little harder at it in America than overseas, where even ordering fast food can be a life-altering experience, but life next semester will be interesting. Whether it wants to be or not.