A Wild Ride: The Ups and Downs of an Emotional Study Abroad

I’ve now been in Germany for just about four months. Looking back, it’s been a crazy rollercoaster of emotions. From one day to the next, from one hour to the next, my feelings have been hard to control or predict. In a mindset I like to call “Study Abroad Land,” you can become pretty detached from the normal kinds of introspection we all do when we get a chance to relax. Sometimes this means the feelings you experience can seem out of place and nonsensical. As someone who might be considering the trip themselves, you might have some idea of what to expect. It might help you account for how you’re feeling. Who knows? I hope it helps. This is my handy timeline of what your opinion of life in Europe might look like:

Overwhelmed:

            When you first arrive in any country you’ll be staying in for a while, you will probably be completely overwhelmed. That whole yarn about crying twice during study abroad “once when you arrive and once when you leave”? The first part is certainly true. Ask around, and you’ll find that just about everyone has a story about how that first night, they knew for a fact they would never get comfortable here. It’s a natural part of the process, and it too shall pass.

Thrilled:

I’d say the first month was like this for me. Everything is new, different, exciting, and foreign. Why do they do this like that? Ooh! Did you see that?? Look, you can drink here legally!!! You’re flying high and you get the full effect of “thank god I didn’t leave that first night.”

The Walls:

As the first few months race by, you often find yourself waking up unhappy or anxious some mornings. You don’t want to go to class, you’re sick of the tram, and why is it always so grey here? This is The Wall. On long distance races, runners will reach a point, a little over halfway through, where their bodies have burnt off all the glycogen stored up in their muscles and need to switch to a new fuel source: the much harder to metabolize fat reserves. This transition makes you want to stop everything you’re doing and quit. As such, runners call the experience “hitting The Wall”. While on study abroad, you’ll hit a number of these Walls. They only come up time and again, but they’re rough patches you’ll have to contend with.

Homesick:

This stage comes at different times for different people. Mine came March 20^th, 2017. I had just come back from a very fun, very homely three-day orientation from my home university, and I was suddenly reminded of something like home. They say when someone is really facing starvation, they don’t feel hunger. It isn’t until they start eating again that their body begins to register how long it’s been since they last ate. That’s how it was for me. Suddenly, I just needed to get out of Study Abroad Land and back to my campus, my friends, and people who weren’t in Study Abroad Land themselves. If this happens to you, don’t freak out; just try to reach out to people back home. What you need is the feeling of being connected, understood, and like a known individual. Being surrounded by strangers can make you start to feel like one.

Both Happy to Be There And Really Wanting to Leave

As you transition out of homesickness, you’ll start to experience the most peculiar sensation: you want nothing more than to go home to your friends and family, but you also want to stay in your new life and see more and more of Europe. Like George Orwell’s “doublethink”, you’ll be thinking these two entirely contradictory ideas at the same time and not notice the logical problem.

The honeymoon has worn off and you recognize that there are things you prefer about home, but at the same time, this brave new world you’ve discovered across the Atlantic is full of promise. You feel like a homebody explorer, a hermit with a penchant for travel, a person split in two.    

Appreciating where you are and where you came from

The more you think about it, the more you realize these two ideas aren’t all that contradictory. I love the campus I left, and the people I’ve met here in Germany have been phenomenal and I hope they can continue to be a part of my life. It’s not a zero-sum game. Loving one place does not mean hating the other. Instead, you begin to realize that both are completely possible and completely positive. I don’t know how to reconcile these two different impulses, but it seems I might not have to. Enjoy the time you have in Germany, and look forward to the life you’ll be returning to. The world’s smaller than you think, and there’s always a chance to see those people again. So don’t worry, take pleasure in your once-in-a-lifetime experience!

Being Happy to Be There But Ready to Leave

            You know, Germany’s great, and I’ve learned a lot, but it’s quickly approaching the time when I feel like applying what I’ve learned to life back home. These lessons will stay with me, and I’ll never forget my time here, but the vacation is starting to feel like it’s gone on long enough.