farewell my friend

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This past Friday the closed down Heidelberg High School. We all knew it was going to happen eventually. The military is starting to reduce it's prescence in Europe, but I didn't think Heidelberg would be closing so soon. Heidelberg is were the General is stationed. How could they be closing already? Why not some of the smaller posts?

Many of my schoolmates along with myself have been posting pictures of our days at HHS. It's made me tear up a few times. Going to school overseas is a different experience for sure. Compared to most of the schools here where I'm currently living, HHS would have been considered small, but over there it was the second largest in Europe. We had about 700 students. We were like a big family. There were a few instances where a parent would be relocated and a teacher was kind enough to take the student in so they could finish off the school year.

I don't know too many people who say that they'd do HS all over again, but ask any HHSer and most of them will tell you HELL YEAH! It was that awesome. Mr. Anderson, my favorite teacher, would throw water on us if it was nice outside and we asked to have class outside and he lived by the saying, It's great to be alive. The military police would make you sing I'm a Little Teapot if you forgot your ID card and you wanted to grab lunch on post. We gathered as a group and planned spring breaks in Spain, Italy, England and France (without chapersones). We took weekend trips to Amsterdam and we hung out on Friday and Saturday nights at the local bar. We giggled and were disgusted at the old men at the schwimbad (pool) in speedos. And we had our prom in a castle. We had a lot of fun. I met some of the best people there and now we're spread out all over the world.

I'm sad that I didn't get to be there for the closing ceremonies and here the bells ring one last time. I will have to make plans to go back at some point, because even if there isn't a military presence there, it's still a beautiful place to visit. There's the castle and castle lightings, strolls down the Hauptstrasse and gyros from Gino's.

My dad is still in Heidelberg. He's retired now, but took a job with the Child Daycare Center (he doesn't have any grand kids yet, but I'm sure the pressure will be on now). His last day is August 31st, that's the last day for the Heidelberg. I wish I could be there. I'm not sure where my dad plans to go next. He tells me he has no desire to come back to the US. So my guess is he'll move to the Philippines. I'm not really okay with that because it's so far away, but I'll have to be okay with it.

This post might not have made the most sense, but it's my blog and I'll blog how I want to. Ha!

reading - Elephants on Acid by Alex Boese This post brought to you in part by: