Back at home

Hello everyone!

A bit more than 3 weeks ago, on the 1st of February to be exact, I took a plane to Berlin to surprise my sister. It was the day of her bachelorette party and she had already started her little Harry Potter-quiz-journey for the day with my other sister and two friends. She didn't expect me to come before the 11th so the look on her face was like shock, happiness and surprise, all at once. When you don't see your sisters for 5 months, only sometimes over video calls which is definitely not even comparable to seeing people you love in person, you just don't really know how to stay calm and not go completely crazy, so maybe you can imagine how we ran towards each other in the rain as soon as she had spotted me around the corner. The next part of the day was making our own chocolate. As luck would have it, it was right next to a Georgian restaurant and the staff of the little factory and shop was speaking Georgian too which really confused me at first, because I thought I was imagining it, but after all I was not having hallucinations. Despite the rain the whole day was really nice and I think my sister liked ot too which was (not surprisingly) the most important thing.

After spending the Sunday in Berlin too, I finally came back to my hometown and saw my parents again. When I arrived, my favourite dish was steaming on the table, I just had to sit down and eat...it tasted heavenly and it was the first time in 5 months that I had a radio in the kitchen while eating. Only then when I had it back I realized how much I had missed it. Of course it's not like I could never listen to music while eating, but I had to go to my room for it or take my phone to the kitchen and play some songs, but it never was the radio playing right next to my chair in the corner near the window.

All over the next days I met up with my friends who I hadn't seen for such a long time, I went to a handball match, back to my basketball practice, visited my grandma, played the piano every day, ate a loooot of jelly bears, tried to get used to speaking German again and just enjoyed being back for while. Even though most of my friends were writing their term exams at university they found some space to spend a bit of time with me, which made me really happy and grateful.

In my second week I was mostly with my dad and my sister (...not the one with the bachelorette party, the other one..) and not at home, because my sister started a new job, so she moved to another city and we had to pack boxes and move some furniture which took us almost 3 days. To unpack and organize everything in the new flat it took us another 3 days and there is still a few boxes left for her to unpack on her own. On the one hand it was a bit stressful...I guess like every time somebody moves to a new flat or house, but on the other hand I felt like doing something useful and spent my time with a part of my family.

The third week was all about preparing the wedding (now I'm talking about my other sister again...bachelorette party and everything...) and another handball match on Thursday evening which was actually my last one in my hometown already again. Before my friend and her dad picked me up to go there I finished packing my two bags: the one for the wedding-weekend and the one to go back to Georgia on Monday. The list of what to pack into each one of them was already done before I even came to Germany, so in theory it shouldn't have taken too long to pack, but while checking the list for the fourth and fifth time I always found something of which I wasn't 100% sure wether I had already put it inside or not, so I unpacked everything again and again until I had to go and get ready for the match.

Friday in the morning my parents and me loaded the car to go to the wedding location, one hour from our city and also one hour from Berlin, where my sister and her (now) husband live. We arrived a bit earlier than most of the guests to help setting everything up. I was responsible for welcoming the guests, showing their rooms and taking a polaroid picture of everyone for the seating in the big hall for the meals on the next day. That was really useful for learning all the names, because of the almost 70 guests I knew maybe a bit more than 20 people...so there were still almost 50 names and faces to remember ^^

The surprise for the evening was a food truck with waffles...they were just amazing. You had the choice between sweet and hearty waffles and I really wanted to try both, but I couldn't. I was not very hungry anyway even though I hadn't eaten much the whole day, only a slice of bread for breakfast before leaving, but after one waffle I was super full. Saturday morning it was exactly the same: I went went to the kitchen to have some tea, but I couldn't eat. Together with my sister (not the one marrying) and the maid of honor I went over to my sister's room to prepare together. We were all super excited before going over to the barn for the actual wedding. Everyone was dressed up super nice and the weather was perfect. The weather forecast said it would get cold and rainy, but instead the sun was shining all day, only when we went inside in the evening it started to rain, but we didn't really care anymore, because the most important part went well. On Sunday we all cleaned and tidied together and by 12 everything was clear and most of the guests were gone. My parents and me stayed one more night, so that they could bring me to the airport on Monday and my sister and her husband left late in the evening after trying to fit all the presents inside their car.

The night sky before going to bed was full of stars. I'm not too much into this watching the stars by night, but it was just beautiful. I couldn't help standing in front of the window for 15 minutes, just staring out onto the lake watching the reflections of the light in the water.

So on Monday with passing the security control at the airport, waving my parents goodbye I left all of this behind again and went back to Georgia. I left home to get home.