So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu!

The time has come to say goodbye to this beautiful place I've called home for so long, and yet so short, a time. It feels like just yesterday that I stepped off the plane and walked out into the sunshine of a summers-end day in Austria, but it seems like forever ago too. Life before Austria seems like a dream, one that is fast approaching reality. Tonight my fellow students and I will be piling onto the buses for one last ride with Tony, making our way to the airport in the dark of night. Tomorrow will be spent traveling; I believe my flight path takes me right over the North Pole! And after a long time in the air, I will be arriving back home in the good old U.S. of A. in the evening.

This semester has been amazing; in so many ways it is indescribable. So many good things have happened! I discovered wonderful people whom I now count among my closest friends, who I might never have known otherwise. We sank in the mud on the Cliffs of Moher. We spent an hour drawing Michaelangelo's David. We met random people on a train and stayed up into the wee hours of the morning talking with them. We discovered the best gelato in all of Italy (at the end of the Ponte Vecchio). We had a heart-to-heart over the biggest dinner ever, by the fireside in a pub in Ireland. We lost Anna more times than I thought it was possible to lose someone. She showed up again every time. I drank more tea in this semester than I think I have in the rest of my life combined. I sang in an a cappella choir and our voices soared heavenward in glorious churches throughout Europe. We climbed the stairs that Jesus walked, kissed the stains left by his blood. We saw the bones of Saint Peter and the gold-encrusted heads of both him and Saint Paul. I met beautiful people from Turkmenistan, Georgia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Belarus, China. We had exciting adventures involving gummy-bear CPR and Wolverine claws. I watched as friends jumped in the creek at 10 pm in the freezing rain. I met beautiful Sisters and experienced the soulful homilies of Fr. Seraphim. My history class and I witnessed the most meaningful appeal to do our homework well and to examine our motives for going to college ever. We all learned almost everything there is to know about "what man and woman do to become mother and father together." Many of us struggled through demanding philosophy classes, but the rewards are unfathomable: this semester would have been superficial in comparison to the way it actually was if Professor Seifert-Wolter had not pushed us to the utmost as she did. I went to Mass almost every day and had dates with Jesus at least once a week. Most of all, the wild and lovely and shining glory of God and all creation has been shown to me in every face, every vista I've encountered.

This beautiful place has touched me deep down and changed me in ways I'm not even sure I understand. And yet it is all a memory now... the challenge is to keep that memory real and alive. I don't want to go back to look back on Austria a year from now and only remember the things we did, I want to look back on this time and be able to say that it made me who I am today. The journey doesn't stop here when I leave this place and a new one begin when I'm back in the States; it is all one journey, one path, and Austria is a turning point: the road less traveled that makes the journey great. Thanks for walking with me!

The road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.