Looking Back - at 36,000 feet!

Flying coach isn't the best mode of international travel, but hey at least I made the flight. Leaving from London, where Maria was really surprised to see me!, turned out to be an adventure. After missing the first flight, where no non-revs got on, I nervously made the cut for the second and last flight of the day. No matter, I still got on and I'm headed home.

It's the culmination of one of the craziest weeks of my life. Never have I spent almost 6 consecutive months away from home, and in a foreign country no less. And in those 6 months it's amazing how many emotions can be shared. For those of you that don't know, I don't really share my feeling very well but when it comes to certain situations then well, let the river flow.

After returning from Iceland I was faced with my final week in Arhus, a scary prospect. Although I knew my departure time when I arrived, it's definitely not something you think about until your rushing to the car for a drive to the airport. Well, after 2 days of finalizing my final project, school was officially over here. I can't say I was all that sad about that part though, :).

When coming together with such a varied group of people, you're bound to find at least one person who you can get along with. Lucky for me, my entire class was great. A popular topic of discussion at the end was how much better our class was compared to the other international classes (in your humble narrators unbiased (?)opinion, we were better). It's something when you can dance around with people from over a half-dozen different countries, all singing the same song and enjoying each others company. It's at one of those points when you say this is pretty cool.

The last days were amazing and tough at the same time. To be honest, I can't remember the last time I was so overwhelmed with things. I'm thinking about freshman year of high school. Packing, cleaning, saying goodbye to people, arranging flights, packing, cleaning, saying goodbye to people, doing fun things and saying goodbye to people all snowballed into a huge snowman. The hours ticked away and the responsibilities seemed to grow. It's funny because they tell you these things will happen in the pre-departure meetings and booklets at Mizzou, but honestly who believes it. I didn't. Boy was I wrong. Luckily, a good talk and a great message brought my spirits up enough to not completely loss it. Having great people in Denmark and at home, that's pretty cool.

I'll certainly always be smiling about my time in the City of Smiles, ARHUS, DENMARK.

I was privilidged to spend time in 8 countries this past semester - Denmark, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Ireland, Iceland - having spent my previous 20 years in one. Something like that is impossible to sum up in one blog entry, but maybe a few words to shed some light: amazing, awesome, spectacular, cultural, educational, fantastic! (maybe I'll get out my thesaurus when I get home to find some more) Speaking of home, I am very excited to see my family and friends, as well as indulge in the sorely missed "finer" sides of St. Louis livin'. And speaking of handbooks again, they say the reverse culture shock will get ya, so I'm a bit nervous about that. Does one week give me enough time to adjust again? We shall see.

Don't think though that this is the end of my blogs about Arhus or the end of EricAbroad08. On the contrary! Following my sure to be crazy week at home, EricAbroad08 in Europe becomes EricAbroad08 in Asia as I travel to Beijing, China for two months to do volunteer journalism work at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Hot, new, fresh, crazy material is sure to pop up on this blog in the months to follow so stay tuned!

EricAbroad08 would sincerely like to thank all those who have read entries or made comments concerning said entries. Although there were times when I was a a bit lax in my rate of entries (including my unfortunate 1+ month of broken computer time), it was exciting to relate stories, thoughts and ideas.

Your Humble Narrator,

EricAbroad08