Real life doesn’t stop while traveling

          Rarely does traveling go smoothly. Quite frankly, it can be more exciting when traveling is spontaneous and impulsive, but that doesn’t mean life stops while traveling. Everyone in Tacoma is still hustling around while it feels like our lives are have been temporarily paused. This is what the beginning of the trip felt like until I realized life doesn’t stop. While on the trip I started to hear back from graduate schools and was brought back to reality when I had to communicate with schools, coordinate visits and start to narrow my decisions down. The time change made this extra difficult and for a couple days I had to be diligent with real life things again.

            I also quickly realized real life doesn’t stop when tonsillitis decided to find refuge in me. Being sick is never fun but being sick while traveling in a foreign country was a whole new level of discomfort. For starters, there is a language barrier so finding medicine and the commodities of home is difficult. Second is the issue of insurance and finding health care. Luckily, the school bought is health insurance for the trip, but that doesn’t mean it was easy to navigate. In fact, it was the opposite of easy. The most unfortunate part was missing out on experiencing the culture.

            I was upset about being sick and I was certainly stressing about graduate schools at some points, but I realized I could sulk or make the most of my trip. I knew there would be ups and downs within the trip. I didn’t exactly expect tonsillitis… but I still got to enjoy Berlin luckily.

I think the highlight of Berlin for me was the Holocaust Memorial. I went with a couple classmates and asked how to interpret it, but they told me there is no explanation. The artist purposely left no explanation because you just have to experience and make your own interpretation. I didn’t really know what that meant until I walked through the narrow, hollow, lifeless isles. The monument was spooky and very unsettling for me which I felt was the appropriate feeling. I should feel uncomfortable. I should feel uncertain. I should feel scared because I was paying my respects to the victims of the holocaust. I was very thankful to visit this site in the midst of a sickness because this site was one of the most impactful of the trip.

Berlin Holocaust Memorial