Lost in Translation

Lost in translation, and a little lost in general.

This week has been the longest week of my life! It started off really low, but everyday has gotten a little better with every new person I befriended. I have learned so much already, and I have only been in Germany for a week now. I've learned about myself and about what studying abroad really entails.

Here is what I have discovered this week. Hopefully this will be helpful for anyone planning to study abroad or anyone who just wants to know what this week has been like!

I'll tell you this: Sunday was a terrible day! Joe flew back to England that morning, and I moved into my empty dorm room. I stayed in that empty dorm room for about 24 hours before even considering leaving. I was having a huge pity party because 1) I felt abandoned in a town in which I knew not one single soul 2) I didn't want Joe to leave and 3) I began to get homesick thinking about how much easier life is at home.

 I was feeling really alone and painfully nostalgic. I cried countless tears and would have gotten the next plane out of town if I could have. I let myself down in that I had already given up on this trip within 48 hours of arriving in Schmalkalden.

What students imagine study abroad to be like and what is really is can be two totally different things. What I have learned is that you cannot predict how you will respond to certain situations until you are experiencing them for the first time. Choosing to study abroad is a huge decision, much bigger than I knew when I was making my plans. It takes some bravery to register to study abroad, but it takes heaps and loads of bravery to set yourself up for a great semester or year of it. You have to overcome nervousness of speaking to people you don't know yet, you have to overcome homesickness, and you have to overcome feeling lonely in a new, uncomfortable place.

It's not been an easy week by any means, but I do not regret coming here at all. I have now met people from all over the world and have had so much fun hanging out with them. Everywhere I go I see people I've talked to, and even if the language barrier is difficult to overcome, we still hug and are elated to see each other. I'm so grateful to have made the relationships I have, because these are the people I will be spending the next five months with and it could not be a better, more friendly group of people. Blessed doesn't even begin to cover it!

I just had to stick out the hard days so that the good days would be even better. I'm lucky that I have never really felt loneliness until I came here to a tiny town in the Middle of Nowhere, Germany. I have always been close to friends and family, even when I left for college home was only one hour away. This has taught me a huge lesson of self-reliance and doing what you have to do even when you feel sad. This was a whole new level of YOU ARE REALLY ON YOUR OWN NOW.

Not everyone has the same experience with studying abroad and that's what's so great about it. My experience started out really rough but like I said, everyday gets better and better. A few seconds of courage is everything. I've learned to trust my struggles and trust that what I'm doing is what I'm supposed to be doing, and at the end of the day I feel content.

The highlight of this week was definitely playing soccer with a group of students on campus. I saw that a guy had posted on the Schmalkalden page asking who wanted to play that day, and after clicking out of it and clicking back into it about fifteen times, I finally mustered up the courage to comment and say that I'd play. I showed up and walked up to this group of students that I didn't know, which was nerve-wrecking, but they were all so nice and welcoming. So we played for a couple of hours and afterwards we were all talking and I found out two of them were brothers from Tunisia, and there were a couple of guys from Turkey, and a few Germans. One of the Germans, the one who posted about playing, thought that "Bethany" was a guy's name and was surprised that that was me! So we all had a good laugh about that and I look forward to seeing them all again.

I hope that this sheds positive light on studying abroad, because it is a positive experience if you make it one. I didn't make it one for the first two days, but once I decided to put my brave face on, it instantly became one.


Thank you for reading,

Bethany