My last few days have been fairly uneventful.
On Monday I had some errands to run on campus, like pick up my remaining Schein from the foreign language department. A Schein is how the university's in Germany give grades. It's a piece of paper that says which class was taken, how many credits were received, who the student is, and what the grade is. It's quite primitive, if you ask me. I did absolutely nothing on Tuesday aside from watch Netflix in bed. It was relaxing and boring. Wednesday was the day I had to say goodbye to Marcella. I met with her, Frank, Martha (France), Indra (Germany), and Annika (Germany) for some lunch/cake. Just as it was with Clare and Matt, it wasn't fun to say goodbye. It still amazes me how such close friendships can develop in such a limited amount of time. Marcella keeps trying to convince me to visit them in England, and I just may do that one day. Once the goodbyes were over, I went around town, shopping and going inside the Dom. I'm trying to get some last sight-seeing done before I leave.
Thursday I went for a run. I also did some more sight-seeing, but this time I went to St. Stephan and Augustinerkirche, two churchs in town. I had been inside both, but with my camera. There was a huge group of tourists inside St. Stephan when I got there. I was walking around taking photos and three separate tourists in the group, two of which didn't speak any German, stopped me and told me I couldn't take pictures. I've never seen fellow tourists be so concerned with the rules. On my way home, I stopped and had some soup at a local cafe. It wasn't so bad to eat alone.
Friday I actually had some errands to run. I went to campus and had some forms signed by my adviser, then walked around the botanical gardens on campus a bit. I eventually went into town where I had potentially my last doener. Two of the workers there know me now, so they asked if I wanted the usual. One of them also knows that I'm from the US, so he asked me the name for lettuce in English. I also had potentially my last ice cream creation, the Kartoffel Becher. I wish we had the same kind of ice cream things in the States like we do here. I also began packing. I packed up most of my clothes, as well as some other items. I couldn't pack everything since I wasn't leaving for a couple of days. I also started the process of cleaning, which is no fun with limited cleaning supplies and when you're in denial of the near future.
I continued to pack and clean on Saturday. I figure that if I break up the cleaning into smaller and less time consuming bits, that it won't be so bad and depressing. It's mostly working for me. In the late afternoon, I went for a walk to St. Peter, a church here in Mainz. For some reason, I had never been inside it before though I had walked by it many, many times. It was more beautiful inside than I was expecting. I headed to the grocery store on my way home, probably my last grocery store experience as well. At 9pm I met Frank at the Hbf and we went to Porters, an Irish pub, for some drinks. After days of no meaningful human interaction, having a real conversation with a friend was a breath of fresh air.
Today was more or less the same as the previous few days. I packed and cleaned some more, though very slowly. Towards the end of the day I went on a three hour walk. I walked down to the Rhein and then along it all the way up to a park that I'd never been to before. There are four flamingos in the park, so I meandered around looking for them. On my way home, I stopped for some ice cream. I also stopped and listened to a concert that was happening near the Dom. After some research online, I figured out that it was Wolfgang Niedecken playing, apparently a well-known German musician.
Tomorrow is my last day here. I've got yet more cleaning to do, as well as some last minute shopping. I'm also planning on spending some time just walking around one last time and enjoying my favorite parts of the city. My flight from Frankfurt is at 10:15am on Tuesday, so I have to leave my place around 7am. I'm still not entirely sure how I'm going to get to the airport with all four of my bags. I guess it shall be my last adventure here.
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