10:35 PM: Munich, Germany
The first day of Europe was extremely overwhelming-- wonderful, but for a very few hours of exhausted culture-shock i felt something almost like homesickness. (I do, of course, miss my mother quite severely!) But the tensions are dissipated now and this tiny hotel room begins to feel safe, a safe place to shoot off from. (I am still, however, very glad to have a home. This culture shock will take some getting used to.)
Today we: landed after an all-night flight, of which no one slept very long; and sight-saw by walking all day. The city is splendid. For so prominent a town, it is so clean, and so serene; laid back and very docile.
All the buildings are either very old and beautiful or very new and beautiful. Toddlers babble mouthfuls of a language I'm only beginning to grasp-- how strange that it is all they know. And yet they are just as I was, and will become just as I am.
I cannot say that the people are exceptionally friendly-- no, rather, they are so genteel and perfect-looking and consumed with each other that they haven't the time to be friendly. It's just like the textbooks, really! Only infinitely more shocking and beautiful.
And I have learned today, among strangers, the importance of having a home. (For one really can only learn this among strangers.) Although we very often wish to discard it, how comforting it is when it leans from the future, cheery-eyed, ready to envelop us after our travels. No matter how unlovely it may be, it is nonetheless home.
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