In the first week of class, one of my professors told me that living outside your home country makes the highs higher and the lows lower. In that moment, I understood why that could be possible, but after living in one city here for about two months and traveling for another month before, I have lived through some of these ups and downs. This is not necessarily an easy thing to write about and post on the internet for everyone to see (yikes), but I think people often go abroad and just talk about how amazing it is, without talking about the tough parts. Don’t worry, I will mention some of the great moments too.

The First Month

The beginning is the hardest part. My school made sure I was ready for culture shock, but that wasn’t what made this time hard. It is how lonely it can be. This is the result of a couple of different things. First of all, making new friends takes time. Back at my home university, I can call a number of my best friends, and show up at their house 10 minutes later just to hang out. Not to mention, I had a boyfriend with whom I spent time constantly prior to leaving. So moving somewhere where I live with a family I don’t know well, who only speak a language in which I am not fluent felt extremely isolating.

On the weekends, there were people to go out with, but when I had class only for 6-9 hours a week, with not much homework to do, all that extra time felt huge. However, I did find some amazing friends who constantly want to do things together, which has helped me avoid being alone. Now, I enjoy these moments alone to recharge.

Brunch Day!

One of the best days of my entire semester was October 13th. My friend Victor invited a bunch of our friends to his house in the mountains. He made us the most amazing brunch and we all just enjoyed hanging out for the whole day. This was the first day I met most of the people I would hang out with for the following two months. All of us were really in a great mood and were constantly laughing. One of  my friends spilled some red wine on his white shirt, and then there was a group effort to clean it. In the meantime, he put on three of the girls’ sweaters or jackets before he finally took an extra shirt from Victor. Then he proceeded to wear that shirt out to the bars with some of us that evening. Some photos of the food and Victor walking around with this beautiful cake are below (unfortunately I am saving the photo of the friend in the girls’ clothing for his birthday…)

The Stress of School

At a certain point in the semester, everyone started getting sick, and the school work started picking up like crazy. This makes everyone really irritable with each other and sad about how hard our lives are. While this happens even when you’re not abroad, this situation panned out differently here for several reasons. First of all, my normal reaction to this much stress is to camp out at the library or a coffee shop in all of my free time. However, between having a set dinner time with my host family, and coffee shop hours not being quite as extensive here, this isn’t really an option. So I have to lump my work around times when I am at school, or motivate myself while at home, which is very difficult for me. Secondly, I know what stress looks like from an American culture, but from other cultures, it can look very different. So while I am extremely stressed myself, I am also trying to manage my friendships with friends who are also stressed, but their displays of emotion are ambiguous to me. Throw in a break-up and missing my family because of Thanksgiving, and you might assume I’m having the glorified mid-semester breakdown. I suppose you could call it that, although there hasn’t been any crying.

Thanksgiving

Speaking of Thanksgiving, this was another high of the semester, and it perfectly countered the aforementioned stress week. Thankfully (hehe), it fell the evening after our last class of the week, so the stress had been lifted. This is definitely another top memory from my semester here. It started with grocery shopping with my friends Fie and Megill, and then we spent the afternoon cooking. We were planning how to warm everything up when we got to the apartment that was hosting (the hosting apartment didn’t have to cook since they weren’t American and we invited ourselves over), just like my family does every year. All of this preparation felt like the evening and morning that happens before Thanksgiving at my house back home, where my mom and I talk and cook, with my brother and dad nearby organizing all of the food.

We arrived at dinner to have the boys who were hosting surprised at how much food we had brought (this was their first American Thanksgiving as far as I know). They all laughed at me when I poured apple cider into a pot and threw in some spices and orange peel. Then our friends started to arrive. It felt just like my family showing up every year (minus the dogs that were always roaming around), with us greeting each new arrival and offering drinks, including the aforementioned cider that was greatly enjoyed.

At dinner, we had all of the Thanksgiving staples. Megill even made us all go around and say what we were thankful for (not quite the rocks in the box, mom), which was nice after how much our group of friends picks on each other. In fact, I wouldn’t say that we had a Friendsgiving, it was actually a Thanksgiving, because in that moment, I felt like I was among family (ewww sorry for getting corny).

To top it all off, I got to call my actual family back home and say hi to everyone. This could have been the lowest low of being here, because I wasn’t home for such a special family holiday, but instead it was one of the highest highs.

This brings me to where I am now…

Honestly, I started writing this post about four or five days ago. But this was not an easy one to write because it bounces between being sappy and being vulnerable, both of which I do not enjoy. Moreover, I am a little under three weeks until my semester here is over, and only 22 days before I fly home. Then, I will be leaving the people who have supported me through so much while 4,500 (or 7,200km) miles from home. I think this is a harder goodbye than my family and friends back home, because I don’t know when or if I will see these people again.

So the highs are higher and the lows are lower, but I think it’s that way because we remember more intense emotions much better.

So it’s two AM here…

…which means I need to sleep, but coming up, I will actually write a post about my school and what that’s like!