Narrative Essay On Atlanta Airport

Stepping into the Atlanta airport on July 1st, 2016, I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into. I lurked timidly next to absolute strangers all the way from the check-in to the flight itself, unsure of myself and everyone accompanying me. Earbuds jammed into my ears to avoid any potential of interaction with my new classmates, I desperately tried to fall asleep aboard the flight bound for Berlin. Upon landing and failing to sleep, I proceeded into the most sleep-deprived and blurry twenty-four hours of my life.

Going into the three-week study abroad in Berlin, I was obscenely confident in my own abilities. I had studied German for three years, so I felt capable enough holding a conversation or navigating my way around a city. Oh, how wrong I was. Over the first twenty-four hours, I learned just how much I didn’t know, but also learned how much I could comprehend if given the chance. Having sleepily shuffled off the runway, I was promptly confronted with public transportation which, overwhelming enough on a normal day, was simply too much for my brain to handle. Posted signs in German caught my eye, completely unintelligible conversations danced around my head, and the foreign smells and sights and sounds swirled together to overwhelm my senses.

The gray stone slabs were silently upright and unassuming, towering somberly overhead. They extended, unmarked, as far as I could see. To see the sobriety with which Germany treated its past atrocities was humbling. In a time of such political upheaval, to see a country saying, “Look what we have done. Look how we are making sure it can never happen again.” left quite the impression, to say the least. After another brief history lesson, we stopped for lunch. Even as I dozed off, I was awake enough to remember the German word for pizza: Pizza. That, at least, was the