The Final Night

Each minute ticks closer, and the night of the final day comes around. In less than four hours we will board a bus to head to Berlin airport to fly to London, to fly back to Dallas. We've packed our bags, said our goodbyes, and now are waiting for each moment to pass, slower and slower as we think about what our future's hold. The fifteen students on this trip have grown so close that even now, we are having fun together while feeling morose about leaving the people we have been bonded to for four months.

As many of you know, I am largely a numbers person. Numbers help me see the world clearly for what it is. And so, I would like to share with you a few numbers about this trip.

• 5,214 miles from Dallas to Leipzig
• Nearly 500 miles walked during this entire trip (less than one tenth the distance!)
• 9 extra trips
• 7 countries
• 22 cities
• 5 old friends
• 9 new ones
• 100s of tram rides
• 19 hours of classes
• 3,031 pictures
• 14 blogs
• 112 days in Europe

These past four months have been a whirlwind of adventures that gained speed to the point where each day seemed like an hour by the end. The people who have been with me are now like brothers and sisters to me, and I can't thank them enough for their company. I also can't thank you readers enough for being there for me when I needed you. All 3.5 of you. 

Spending time abroad has taught me many things about life and the world. But I would say that the most important lessons it taught me were those about people. No person is who I think they are in my head, sometimes for better, and other times for worse. No person's actions are my responsibility, though I have a duty to help those that I can. Life riding the tram taught me that young and old, rich and poor, male and female, western or eastern, we all are humans and we all need the same things. Food, water, education, love, and a purpose for starters. I've learned that the circumstances of our birth are irrelevant, because it is what we do with our lives that tells us who we are. In the end, we're all human.

To close this out, I'd like to quote one of my favorite philosophers.

"We do have a lot in common. The same earth, the same air, the same sky. Maybe if we started looking at what's the same instead of always looking at what's different, well, who knows?"

Thank you for reading this blog, and for traveling with me on these adventures. 

As always,

Keep it Fresh

Hug someone you love

Always laugh

Eat some chocolate

and don't be a stranger.

Thanks for reading,

-Tad Kile

SO MANY FLOWERS

10 days left. Did you hear me? Only 10 short days till we head back to Texas. This is a mixed message of joy and grief. On the one hand, it means getting to go home to see those I love. On the other hand it means leaving Europe and catching up on many mounds of papers. It's a trade-off really. Either way, we spent this last weekend in Amsterdam in Holland in the Netherlands. It was absolutely b-e-a-utiful, and I took plenty of pictures. With me on this trip was myself, Jacob, Tanner, Bailey, and James.

First off, on Monday our whole group took a tour of the BMW plant in Leipzig. It is a massive factory that employs over seven thousand people in one of the most high-tech futuristic looking places I've ever seen. Our tour-guides who were a safety overseer in the factory and an engineer who worked in the electrical car department. My jaw dropped a considerable number of times, and the factory looked like both an incredible feat of man kind, and an awesome place to have a fight against a hoard of zombies.

Now onto Amsterdam! We flew into Amsterdam on Wednesday, and unbeknownst to me at the time of booking, on 4.20. That's right, we were in Amsterdam on 4.20. It showed too. Walking around that night to find dinner, we happened upon a massive reggae-style weed-fest. If this website was actually decent on the creator's end, I would be able to upload a video of it to you. I'll do my best to put a picture in your mind though. A blue tent in a courtyard next to a canal was set up, with four men playing laid back music. A heavy smog filled the air that could be smelled from two blocks back. People of all age and race and gender danced in one mush near the stage, and a carnival ride threw overjoyed people in circles not to far off. Not a sight one will forget.

Canal at night

The Rabbit uprising begins!

Sunset in Amsterdam

I should have been less surprised, but...

What is it stairwell?

The next day we woke up, and headed to the Airport to transfer to Keukenhof gardens, the gem of the whole trip for me. It was a sunny, bright day, and we arrived at the airport around 10:30. We then waited in two different lines for two hours total to get to the bus to go to the park, but around 1:00 we made it to the botanical gardens of the Netherlands. In spring. It's gonna get good. Describing the beauty of these flowers is something I am going to struggle with doing. My words simply cannot suffice. The park took me the better part of five hours to go around and I took over 300 pictures.

Pretty awesome, right?

The next day we had a mixed set of activities. We took a canal cruise that was filled to the brim with couples aged such that we brought the average age down by at least forty. The canals are beautiful and plentiful, even if the canal ride was a bit slow. Later we went to a cheese shop (Edit: many cheese shops), and to the Amsterdam flower market. We rounded off the day by visiting the Van Gough museum. I never knew quite how wonderful his paintings were, but they were beautiful, and they were everywhere. 

Amsterdam Canals

Couch boat

Anne Frank House

Our final day in Amsterdam we traveled to the elongated flea market along a canal. We ate twice over at a restaurant called Bagels and Beans, and it was delicious each time. We visited the big museum in Amsterdam, the Rijksmuseum, which held works by Rembrant, and plenty of other big names I did not know. Easily the biggest art museum we've been in, as I know I did not see it all. Though there may have been a minotaur in the labyrinth of art.

Gluten Free!

Waterloo

Can't tell if mountain or wave...

@Nevan Tree climbing goals?

Doge was with Adam and Eve

The Night's Watch

SAIL

Fit this in a bottle

My two new best friends

More flowers

Somehow more flowers

The trip back was exciting as well. We landed in Berlin at 10:00, and took a taxi to the ZOB (bus station). It was... a dilapidated mess to say the best of it. It was dirty, filled with flickering lights, broken bottles, and shifty people. However, I made a new friend there! His name was Hans, and he was from Albania he told me. He was really nice, and we were actually taking the same bus to the same stop. I helped him get in contact with his friend, and he is a really cool dude. Shout-out to Hans. 

And now we are at today. My birthday! This also means it is Grace's birthday. So to Grace, I say, Happy Birthday! I hope you're having a good one, and I can't wait to see you to talk with you. I really can't. 

My best twin sister

Till next time everybody, 

Laugh like it's the funniest joke you've ever heard, and one day it will be.

-Tad Kile