goodbyes are hard

I woke up this morning at 4 AM to get ready to leave London.  I haven't written anything about the last week of Eurotour, but I really need to get this out on "paper" while it's still fresh.

GOODBYES ARE SO DIFFICULT!!!

Not only was everyone sleep deprived and sick of each other, but no one wanted to say goodbye because we love each other so much.  In the words of Devin Goebel, my dear friend from Ohio who is doing his exchange year in Oppegård, "...now we're like a little cozy family."  Throughout the trip, we all had our up days and our down days from being around everyone, but were okay after our little snaps to be friends again.  I will admit, I had some breaking moments as did most others... but we're all so close now, that we know we'd forgive each other for almost anything.  All we do is get on each others nerves... like siblings.

I can't believe that it's May 10th and I'm titling my blog post "goodbyes are hard" without capitalization.  I figured that I would say goodbye the last week before leaving and at the airport when I left.  Goodbyes this early put things into perspective.  My time is really winding down.  I have 65 days left in Norway - about nine weeks.  Before this year, I had never been away from home for more than four weeks at a time.  Now I'm complaining that I have too little time before returning home and it's over double the amount! 

Last night, Kate, Nina, Devin, Hannah, Miki, possibly a few others and I tried to pull an all nighter to get the last few moments in.  We ended up dyeing Kate's hair (which looks awesome) and waking each other up.  Although we saw some amazing and beautiful once in a lifetime things on Eurotour, I know that I will always remember last night.  I may not remember my feelings when I saw L'Arc de Triumph, but I know I will remember the tight friendships I have made with the other exchangers.  The Eurotour was not designed to just show us Europe, but to strengthen the friendships we have made at language camp, winter camp and onward to have a closer feeling to the world as a whole.  I now know that I have some very close friends who live thousands of miles away from me, but will always be in my heart. 

This is getting really gushy... but I just wanted to say THANK YOU NORWAY ROTARY EXCHANGERS!  And thank you especially to Gunther, Tove ("Mom"), Morten ("Commandbro") and Manfred for making this an experience of a lifetime. 

Here's a few moments I captured during the eurotour that will always make me laugh:

And you can't forget our crazy tour guide from the beginning.. He was explaining the meaning of "anal retentive"... don't ask me why.  xD

One more for good luck.  Here we're all touching the statue so we can come back to Prague. 

<3
Rotary forever :)