Andrew Parsons Foreign Exchange Student at large

I’m sitting in an empty airport. To my right are the soaring double sealed windows that seem to be every terminal’s “unique feature,” complete with the nose smudges of small children, the signature of unseen predecessors left behind from pushing eager faces up against glass. To my left just passed a serious looking man on a Segway, if that is even possible. In front and behind me are empty grey metal seats and a line of gate entryways, with gleaming glass ThyssenKrupp jetways protruding from each mouth.

I didn’t write about my time in Amsterdam, convening with my parents, my last week week in Schleiden, my host family’s farewell, or my time in Warsaw, Wroclaw, and Budapest. A lot has happened since Merkel.

However in the seven minutes that I have between now and boarding time, I’m able to sit down and write the last lines of this chapter.

Maybe it is better said as the end of an Act. My exchange year was a series of chapters woven together, and my time in Poland and Hungary formed another. But this departure from the European continent seems to mark the end of something bigger.

Alles Gute hat sein Ende

I suppose it is time to start Act IV.

Auf Wiedersehen.