I went to study abroad in Germany when I was 15 years old. I was a midwestern kid who wanted to get out and explore. I went to high school at a small tech focused high school in southeast Wisconsin without a study abroad program. I had to contact an outside organization and put them in contact with my school’s administration to get it approved. It was a giant leap for a shy kid like me to take but it was an integral coming of age experience that helped make me who I am.

I went in somewhat blind, I just knew I wanted to go to Europe. I was very good at geography and could name all of the countries in Europe since I was in middle school, but I had no more than surface level understandings of those places. I eventually chose Germany on the recommendations of family members who had been there. My grandfather was stationed in West Berlin and told me he liked it and that was good enough for me. I had a somewhat misguided sense of what it would be like. I was very interested in all things medieval at the time and thought it would be some magical adventure. Obviously modern Germany is very far from a land of knights and castles but I learned so much and found a lot of new fascinations. I learned about failure, how to deal with unfamiliar situations and independence.

The first month I was there was spent in Karlsruhe with other exchange students, one from Azerbaijan, two from South Africa, and one from Australia. We had a crash course on German language and culture before going our separate ways to live with different host families across different states.

I went to live in Kassel with a single mother and her daughter hosting me. I made friends quickly at school, but I just didn’t mesh well with my host family. They got frustrated very easily at my poor German and switched to English often so I wasn’t really learning. Three months in I was transferred to be with a new family. A high percentage of exchange students end up switching hist families, it wasn’t something to be ashamed of. but I was.

They set me up with a new host family in Thüringen, a state in what used to be the country of East Germany. I lived  in a tiny village with no more than a hundred people and my host family barely spoke any English so I was forced to learn which ended up being much better. I picked up on the pronunciation and built a stronger relationship with the family of two parents and triplets. My younger brothers were twins and that was a bit familiar. I immediately noticed the differences between the east and west that lingered even though reunification had happened before I was born. I felt like the west was a bit more haughty and the east was more proud. The east felt closer to my homeland of Wisconsin which is no surprise considering the number of German immigrants that had settled there in the past.

Anyways, even though I had an incredible host family, I ended up struggling in the new school and had a hard time making friends and succeeding in classes. The neighbor across the street in the village I lived in was my only friend, but he went to a different school. I was so relieved when it was time to finally return home after a long six months but that wasn’t the end of my story with Germany.

My college had a program where you could earn a second degree from the university in Germany by studying abroad for one year and I took that challenge. Five years later I returned to try again. This time was different. I had a community of twenty or so other American students to share in the experience and I had grown a lot as a person since then. The destination this time was in the North, specifically Lübeck. Another chance to experience a region of this country. I ended up doing a lot more travel and socializing this time. I had an amazing chance to revisit my host family from Thüringen. There are tons of small stories and experiences that I could fill pages with. It flew by and dragged on at the same time. It has been a long time since I was there last, but I hope to get a chance to revisit this place called Germany that changed me.