Happy (Belated) Anniversary to me

Amazingly enough, I have been here in Germany for one entire year. (My actual anniversary is June 24th, but like almost always, I didn't manage to post on time.)

It seems pretty amazing that it's been an entire year. There have been some extreme highs and some deep lows. Overall, there have definitely been more highs than lows. I've been very fortunate to have made some really good friends here and they make my life here really, really great. And Stuttgart is an amazing city. There's no end to the activities here. And it's beautiful, really beautiful. My job is a challenging, but it's also pretty great. I never dreamed of having the opportunity to travel on business trips as I have in the last several months.

But I wouldn't be honest if I said it was all roses. At the beginning, it was very hard. I struggled with the language, I was totally afraid of picking up the phone at work, because I thought I wouldn't understand the person on the other end. And I spent a lot of time alone when I first moved here. And I'm very far away from my family - when you live five minutes away from family, you take them for granted. When they're not so close, it's, well, I still have homesickness some days. And then there are the days - let's call them the "foreigner days"...Most days I do feel at home here, but these foreigner days are the days when I am very aware that I am living in a "foreign" country.

I would do it all over again, though. In a heartbeat. I have learned so much about myself and about what I am capable of. I've improved my German. I've made amazing friends. I bought a car all on my own. I've lived in three different places in one year. I've been on 3 different continents in the last four months. All in all, it's been one amazing year.