Looking back at my experience in Berlin feels like trying to recall a dream. I search for memories of Berlin, but they come back to me out of order. I’ll suddenly have a flashback of the Reichstag followed by a walk through Tiergarten. But that’s not the way it happened.
My mind merges my flights to Germany with my flights back to the States. It confuses flavors and sounds and sights.
All those thoughts make me wish I was back, though, so I could remember what it was all like again in the same surreal vividness and vibrancy that first captivated me.
When I returned home from Berlin, I was hurtled into the real world once again. In Berlin my mind and body were both at peace. But just two days back in the United States, my stomach was a wreck. I had to return to Gainesville with my mother because I was so weak and sick.
Since I began with the SCD I never really broke the rules. I would occasionally eat a few bites of pasta or a few potato chips, but other than that I stuck with it. I realized that this diet does not control my disease, but when I am not in a flare up it helps. So I stuck with it for the most part in Berlin and when I arrived home too.
I was very sick all throughout June and July. Now that school has started I finally feel better, but my perspective on this diet has changed. Now I will allow myself to have soy sauce. I’ll indulge in plantains and maple syrup (not together of course). I should have let myself eat the ice cream at the TV Tower on our last night in Berlin.
I am eternally grateful that I felt perfectly healthy whilst in Germany. I wouldn’t have had the spectacular time I did if I wasn’t feeling well. I wish I could go back and eat a lamb sausage at Prater Garten. But I’m back in Gainesville, which means that Berlin is far away and reminders of it come when I see a fellow classmate or my professor who led the trip.
For you, dear reader, while I sadly sit in Florida and not Berlin, you can be happy because this can only mean one thing for you: MORE AWESOME RECIPES.
Lil crumbnut 