l'auberge espagnole

Somewhere at home, buried among other childhood trinkets and memories, is a small frame saying: "home is where the heart is." Tonight I watched l'auberge espagnole for my French seminar, and a whole bunch of my life suddenly seemed to click. It's a film from 2002 that takes place in Barcelona about a group of European exchange students, and just about every turn the film took reminded me of my stay in Bamberg. It was were I was on my own for the first time, immersed in the day-to-day life of a young professional, plunged into a new local culture. I benefited immensely from this exposure to an independant lifestyle and new social environment, where I learned what it meant to be the outsider in a culture and place. The transition was difficult; I'm not going to lie about that, but it was so much more than what I found before it, at Princeton or in my childhood home. This doesn't mean that Princeton and Duxbury don't hold special places in my mind and my heart. You have only to meet me briefly to see how enamoured I am with campus and the life and the opportunities offered on a daily basis to those whom luck has favored. You have only to catch me during a nostalgic moment when I desparately wish to escape to the seaside back home or spend a few hours in front of our old wood stove or an afternoon with my kittens. It's all a part of who I am, and yet, what was offered to me in Germany was something new and tantalizing. It hooked me. So now, whenever I wander into a narrow, cobblestone street; sit within the cold, vast stone of the University Chapel; stop in at the local microbrewery, it all comes rushing back. Not necessarily all at once, but the fondness I have for the people and culture of little Bamberg will not easily be pushed aside. One would think that rationally I'd be over it all by now. So why do I still reminisce so much? Maybe it's finally time to put all the stories, memories, and moments into a scrapbook and be done with it. Is it possible to do that? Will that make whatever seems missing disappear? Or do I wait till the fall and hope that wherever I am overfills the spot where Bamberg once was?