Back in Karlsruhe and with several hours of nothing to do before I could retrieve my luggage, I wandered around the palace grounds. Lo and behold, I found a small railway pulling children and parents.
Yes, in fact there are tracks running through the grass.
The old palace.
Sad to see my year abroad end but also happy to be going on to new adventures. That evening I took the train down to Freiburg where I stayed the night with Nina. We went out partying with her friends who were waiting for their bar exam scores to come the following day. Nina and I got back to her house about an hour before the train left for the Frankfurt airport. I didn’t get any sleep to speak of until the end of the 13 hour direct flight from Frankfurt to Portland and the hour car ride back to my parents house. I must have been quite the sight getting off the plane dead tired, with blood-shot eyes, smelling of cigarette smoke and spilled alcohol, and hauling a year’s worth of accumulated possessions. Oh what a year it was!