What did you do this May?

Sitting in the Charlotte airport after my nine hour flight back from Munich, I wonder what I would be doing right now if I didn’t get the opportunity to go on this trip. What would I be doing if I had gone home to Maryland after my last exam? What would I be like now if I didn’t take “the road less traveled by.”

I would learn basic skills for my major at an unpaid summer internship. I would get to see my old friends. Some of them have been away at college, others never left home and are thrilled everybody is back in town for boating season on the Severn River. My dad would give me a curfew that is nonnegotiable, but it’s because he cares. I would have access to a fridge with an unlimited supply of food and have a home cooked meal every night for dinner. I’d probably come home next summer and do the same thing again, with little growth or change. My ankle never would have been cut open and bruised by two sliding doors. I would be a thousand dollars richer, but I would have missed out on lifetime experience and be that much poorer.

Instead I went to the study abroad office, learned about the Munich Maymester, and emailed Professor Farrand. I went to Germany, and learned things I am having trouble writing out. I saw the Berlin wall, Dachau, the Brandenburg Gate, the Glockenspiel, and all other great things there are to see in Berlin and Munich. I went through with my decision to study the month of May in Germany with twenty-something strangers. The funny thing is, after two weeks of traveling together, these strangers have become the best friends I have ever had. We have grown so close and I know I will miss them dearly this summer. They say the people you hang around, are the people you will become. I am confident any change that has come from this trip has made me into better Caroline.