Ten wonderful months are about to come to an end.
A year in another country changed me. My feelings about going back to Germany are mixed, I feel sad but at the same time, I’m excited. It’s going to feel different returning to my home country after being gone for a year and I will get a reverse culture shock. That means that I have to get used to my own culture again after being gone for a whole school year.
I learned so many different things here and I’m going to talk about some of the most important ones.
When I arrived last August, everything was new and different to me. The school here is so much bigger, everybody drives at 16 and not at 18, and no public transportation. The next big thing for me was the food. Fast food is everywhere and I love to try all the places I don’t have in Germany. My personal favorite was Canes and Chick-fil-A.
At first, I improved my English because I needed to express everything in another language. I understand everything people say and I can also mostly say everything. Other people still hear my accent and that’s okay because it takes many years to speak perfectly. Besides that, I learned so much about American culture all the different holidays, and just the way of life in America.
A hard thing for me was to step out of my comfort zone. I had to fly to another country, live with a family I never met, and talk to people at school in a different language than I was used to. And I had to do all of that alone. Sometimes it’s difficult and you are scared to do things, but you need to step out of your fear. It takes a lot of independence and confidence.
Another thing I learned is who I am and what’s important to me. It helped me to figure out what I wanted later on in my life. For example, I know that I want to be a flight attendant after school for a few years, to travel around the world and learn a lot about different cultures.
Leaving my life in Germany behind me was one of the hardest things. It helped me to know how important my family and friends are. I had to leave them for a whole year and it wasn’t always easy. I missed them a lot and it made me sad to think on what I was missing out on, when I could’ve been with them. But they were always there for me, and they are very excited for me to come back home.
It’s one of the greatest experiences I had in my life so far and I would do it again anytime. Everybody who is thinking about spending some time abroad, do it, it’s so worth it.
