Unpacking my Arrival

My neat little room: My neat little room in BerlinIt took a long time for it to sink in for my family and I that I was going away for three and a half months. It is still a work in progress, in fact – every day I wake up in awe and think, wow, I am in Berlin. In the two months leading up to my departure, I was working at a day camp. Every day, I kept telling myself, You’ll be gone pretty soon, Rebecca, don’t forget. Every day, I began taking small steps towards preparing for life abroad. I opened a new bank account, made sure I had the right suitcases, and began compartmentalizing my entire life into an airport-friendly-sized microcosm of everything that I had back home in New Jersey. People had warned me that packing to go abroad would be nothing less than nightmarish. There were horror stories of girls being unable to part with their beloved heels, despite having been warned of all the cobblestone streets; girls who had shipped out boxes of clothes and products prior to their departure; students who had shown up with three suitcases and found themselves heading back home with five. I swore to myself immediately that I would pack light and save space for whatever I bought here. As it turned out, packing was not the challenge at all – unpacking was. I arrived safe, sound and on time in Berlin. All of my suitcases arrived exactly on time, one after another, and I happened to meet up with another NYU in Berlin student at the airport whose German was good enough to communicate to a cabby where we wanted to go (if left to my own devices, my German directions would have undoubtedly taken me clear across the city). It was a rainy, miserable, chilly greeting to a new life in an unfamiliar country, but no matter. This ensured that I would take care of that tedious chore of unpacking immediately. As I began taking my clothes out and folding them cleanly and neatly onto my new shelves, hanging up my coats in a new closet, and decorating my dresser, it finally truly sank in. This was my life, removed from the airport-approved suitcases and duffel bags. These were my few books I had brought, my few key books. These were my keys to my – MY – apartment and mailbox. This was what I would depend on until December 21st, the day of my departure from Berlin. Now, it was official – I had arrived.