It didn’t really hit me that I would be leaving for an entire year until the night before. I had said goodbye to all of my friends, but somehow it still didn’t quite feel real. As I rushed to make sure I had everything I needed stuffed into my suitcase, I felt serious dread that I had not anticipated. It wasn’t about leaving the country, or even my friends that had me so anxious; both of which I have done before. It was, however, leaving my parents for the first time in my life and making the journey to DC feeling quite alone. I slept for two hours that night. Waking up extremely early the next morning to catch my flight, the adrenaline kept on mounting. Perhaps the hardest, most emotional part of the ordeal was saying goodbye to my beloved dog. Driving to the airport, looking out over the beautiful Tampa Bay, knowing my friends would all wake up in a few hours and be at school - a normal day. My mother brought me up to the gate and said goodbye, meaning this was the first real parting to the only person who I had known and lived with for the entirety of my life (My father spent a lot of time overseas). It was this act that solidified my feeling that this was truly the start of independence, and perhaps adulthood as well. I didn’t sleep at all on the plane - failure to equalise led to a migraine that prevented me from opening my eyes or turning my head until we touched down. By the time I got to DC, it was around noon. To my utter disappointment, it was as hot and humid in DC as it was in Tampa. After a bit of wandering around, I found a young man in a red AFS shirt with three other kids my age sitting by him. We took the bus to the hotel where the other students were, and that’s when the fun began. Because of a screw-up on the part of the hotel, we didn’t get rooms until extremely late at night, meaning we had to sit on the floor for about 6 hours or so in a freezing cold room. Having had only two hours of sleep in the past 48 hours, this was quite bothersome. We were also not permitted to see the other students who had arrived a few days before, as they were with a separate program. The rice they gave us for dinner was a godsend, as lunch was never provided for us. However, despite the crappiness, I was still in a good mood. Pretty soon I was able to meet many of the other exchange students, all coming from different backgrounds and for different reasons. All of us were just excited to get on the plane - away from the endless talks on “dealing with emotions as an exchange student”. They only gave us around 6 hours of sleep, which really sucked, but somehow the adrenaline (And lots of coffee) kept us all energised. After more talks in the morning, we finally entered the airport and very slowly made our way to the bagging checkage, and then to our gate. We said one last goodbye to US soil (Airport carpet) and filed into the massive jet to our seats. Very luckily for me, the one person who had cancelled and gave up their seat was right next to me, so the ride was very comfortable. I sat next to a friend I had made and we discussed our thoughts on what was to come. I was very excited to put what little German I had learnt beforehand to the test. Naturally, this meant watching Gladiator in German; a movie I did not anticipate the gore factor of beforehand. My friend was lucky and managed to sleep for about half an hour, but despite my efforts, it was impossible for me. By the time we arrived over Frankfurt, the sun was peaking out and the daily commute had just begun. We touched down and, as always, the Americans clapped loudly. We exited the cabin and regrouped outside the gate. It was real. All the signs were in German. Memories of being in Germany in the past were suddenly popping into my head, making me even more excited. We all made our way through customs and to the entrance of the airport where we began saying our goodbyes to one another. Some students would stay here for a while longer, and some would be picked up immediately by their host families. I really had no idea what was happening with me, but fortunately there was another American girl in my chapter who I had briefly met prior to this. We discovered that soon, the two of us and two other exchange students from Brasil would ride in the car of an AFS volunteer from our chapter to each of our homes outside of Stuttgart. We met the two brasilians shortly thereafter, who looked just about as sleepless as we did. The car ride was rather awkward, as our councillor was excited to talk to us while we struggled to keep our eyes open. The others now say the car ride was something like two hours or more, but the beautiful scenery kept me sufficiently entranced so that it was not totally boring. And, as we were driving on the autobahn in the car of a man who is very, very passionate about cars, we went something like 190kmh (120mph) at every stretch it was possible, making for a rather exciting family roadtrip. I was the second to be dropped off at my home, where I was very warmly greeted by my family. I think I would have been extremely anxious about meeting them had I been more awake. What happened next was all kind of a blur. It was still early in the day, so I could not sleep for quite some time else risk getting too far off schedule. Instead, my host brother decided to show me around the town via bike. It was a beautiful day and the town seemed really amazing, but due to my lack of sleep only about 5% could be mapped out in my brain, meaning I still didn’t know where anything was. Afterwards, I returned home and we talked about a number of things like the family, my trip, etc. My host sister was at a camp so I would not meet her for a few more days. I would be staying in the room of the other host brother who is also currently abroad for the year. By far, the best thing was that my family is also vegetarian, meaning I wouldn’t have to drastically alter my way of life for a year. My school would also not start for another couple of days, so I would have a bit of time to recover from jetlag. After dinner, I crashed in my new bed and immediately fell asleep. Thus concludes my first day in Germany.
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The most common questions I am asked about my year abroad are: Why did you decide to go, and why Germany? Unfortunately, this isn't the easiest question to answer without a bit of context.
I move a lot. Before my exchange, I had lived in 6 places. My father's job meant having to pack up every few years and leave all my friends behind to go to a new and unfamiliar place, house, and school. As a young child who didn't understand the reason or importance of this, I was deeply affected every time I had to say goodbye to the home that was all I knew. I always felt rather cursed as a result, not seeing the bright side to this unavoidable ordeal I would inevitably have to repeat over and over. It was, however, this very same hardship that would change my life forever, and in fact, for the better. In Pensacola Florida, the fourth place I had lived, my father received a job offer to move to Vicenza, Veneto, Italia. Taking it like any 11 year old who had never left the USA before, I did not want to go. I was terrified of a strange and foreign land in which nobody spoke my language and in which I would have to start all over again making friends. Looking back, this fear was extremely reasonable. It's a very strange thing, the way time passes in perspective. As D. Alighieri wrote; when one of our faculties is occupied by a matter of concentrate to the soul, time will pass by as we are unawares. My years before moving to Italy were, in fact, all I had known. While it would be wrong of me to claim that one time and place was specifically more rewarding or enjoyable, I do believe that travelling and living in another country at such a young age drastically altered my conceptual scope and general way of thinking - on top of learning another language. In the few years that I lived in Italy, I travelled all over Europe and met many different people and perspectives. Up until that point, and perhaps not even until it was in retrospect, I never truly felt I had a place to call home. However, the sheer amount of experience and stimulation I received at this extremely critical age made this short time feel like an entire childhood; one I continue to look back upon with deep nostalgia. It was, I think, not until the airplane had picked up off the ground at the Venetian airport and I found myself tearing up as I hummed the Italian national anthem that the significance of my experience truly sank in. While I love the United States, I realised that no matter where one comes from, it is extremely important that they branch out of their lingual and cultural comfort zone and experience firsthand how big the world truly is. Possessing this worldly sense - the realisation that all human beings are in fact just that, despite their nationality or any other defining trait - is, I believe, the only thing that can bring about peace and mutual understanding between nations; and ultimately the world. Unfortunately, along with it comes some serious identity issues. Answering where I come from can be tricky, for example. I believe that all multinational people share this problem: a feeling that one isn’t quite a member of the society of either group, but instead stuck somewhere in between. Likewise, this is perhaps one of the most difficult challenges for exchange students, as it is almost impossible to explain it to someone who has never experienced it firsthand. However, no successful exchange student would argue that the burden isn’t worth carrying, because although you now carry the weight of two separate and distinct worlds on your shoulders, they are each completely unique and yours to experience exclusively. It is this belief that led to my decision. Since I have already experienced what immersion into another culture is like, I knew I could handle the stress and emotions that come along with it. Perhaps a spot of wanderlust played into it as well, as Tampa is admittedly rather drab for someone who loves mountains and sub 30° weather. Luckily, my mother was also an AFS exchange student to Brasil when she was my age, so I had a direct source to understand the difficulties I would face, as well as the enrollment process, which, having decided to do this about a week before the deadline, helped quite a bit. So, I signed up and that was that. A lot of my friends thought I was being impulsive, rash, or downright traitorous; but again, it`s an extremely difficult thing to explain the reasons behind. Admittedly, my decision was a bit “impulsive” to decide to do at the last minute, but spontaneity is definitely one of my stronger traits. OK, so that answers the first question. But why, you ask, did I pick Germany? Well, this also requires a bit of context. I’ve always been fascinated by the German language. The first song I ever downloaded on my first phone was “99 Luftballons” by Nena. It seemed so foreign, yet so similar to English at the same time, and completely different from the more latin aspect that I was so used to thinking in. And, being young, I knew it wouldn’t be an unattainable desire to learn it. A famous quote by Oscar Wilde - “Life is too short to learn German” really seemed like a challenge to me. On top of this, German is an extremely important language to know both in the scientific and medical fields as well as in diplomacy and international relations, therefore making it’s value very high to someone like me who wishes to pursue this field. However, the language aspect alone was not enough to convince me to pick Germany over any other country in the world. The happiest memory of my life - and yes, in the cliché film sense - happened to occur atop a mountain in Deutsch-speaking Austria overlooking the city of Innsbruck. I was staying with Meadowlark Lemon and a lot of my Italian friends at the Innsbruck Olympic Ski resort over the Christmas Holiday. After a really amazing day shooting hoops with the basketball legend and eating schnitzel along the beautiful river in the snowy but sunny city, we spent the evening singing and eating and playing in the snow. What really set it apart, however, was looking out over the city at night with my best bro, drinking hot apple cider and counting down the seconds until the new year. Oh - and then running around and spraying all the couples who were making out with sillystring. But I digress. This was not the only experience in the german speaking world that led to my decision, as I had visited Austria, Germany, and German Switzerland many times before and after, but it was because of this that planted a desire in me to learn the language of these beautiful and extremely diverse lands. So why not Austria then? To be honest, I would’ve been fine with Austria as well, but for a number of reasons I decided to go with Germany: First, In Austria, German is spoken with a rather heavy accent and strong dialect, so to someone from northern Germany it might be pretty much unintelligible. Choosing Germany would give me the chance to learn “Hochdeutsch” or “Standard German” that is comparable to Received Pronunciation. Second, If I wanted citizenship (Who doesn’t want EU citizenship) in Austria, I would have to live there for ten years and revoke my US citizenship, which I obviously wouldn’t do. In Germany, I could attain dual citizenship in just two years of living there, provided I speak fluent German / have integrated. Third, I really love German history - and no, not that, before that. The formation of Germany and the Germanic peoples preceding it fascinate me to no end. Having already learned and experienced it from the “Roman” side, I’d really liked to experience the opposite. To my amazement, the people here in Southern Germany say “Servus” as a greeting, not necessarily even realising its origin (I asked a number of people). It is incredible to witness the history and culture of the ancient Germanic tribes still permeating society hundreds if not thousands of years later. So anyways, that’s how I got to where I am now. I hope that my slightly inane ramblings have sated your curiosity. Subsequent posts will detail my experience during different points of my trip, starting with taking off from Tampa. Please feel free to send me questions! It’s rather difficult to keep everyone informed about my travels here, so I am hoping to answer any questions here on my blog. Thanks! Nicholas Tavassoli |
AuthorHi! I'm Nick Tavassoli, an AFS exchange student in Germany for the 2016/2017 year. ArchivesCategories |