We couldn’t stop talking about how excited we were to go home.
But it’s hard for me to truly establish for myself where I call home. I feel at home at my childhood home where my parents and sisters live. I feel at home in my apartment that I lived in for the past school year with my friend. I feel at home where there are people who love and care about me around me. And although I have had some incredible experiences and became closer with my classmates since I have been here, Germany does not feel like home.
Home for most of my classmates means back to New Jersey to be reunited with their families, loved ones, beds, and air conditioners. But I still have seven more weeks before I go back to New Jersey to see my family, hug my friends, sleep in my bed, and experience sweet sweet air conditioning.
My next designation is Israel. A place that brings feelings of home, comfort, and familiarity. On past visits to Israel, when the plane lands at the Tel Aviv airport, my heart swells, and I start to get teary eyed. I think to myself how I have just arrived in a country where my great grandmother, grandparents, and father lived; where I understand the language (mostly), the food is familiar, and the culture is mine. Even if it isn’t where my family stays, I am lucky to have friends there who I can call family.
So now I embark on a trip that I planned in January, to study my thesis topic in a field I am passionate about, in a country that will be my home, whether I like it or not, for the next seven weeks.
“I was told. Every day in my childhood. Even when we grow old “Home will be where the heart is” Never were words so true. My heart’s far, far away. Home is too.”
-Belle, Beauty and The Beast
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