First Impressions

Since this past week we have not done much academics, this post will mostly be about my personal experiences.

My first day in Germany was filled with first impressions: the people look like your typical Germans, white with light colored eyes. The city had very European type buildings. All this makes sense but it was definitely not what I was expecting.

The jet lag was more of an inconvenience than I anticipated. I had trusted that my youth would spare me from waking up in the middle of the night or from being exhausted at 2 pm, but I was very wrong and I would wake up at 3 in the morning and not be able to sleep until 5am which lead me to almost pass out every day during lunch time. Friday was the first day I was finally able to get a good nights sleep and not be completely dead on Saturday.

The language barrier -or lack thereof- was the other thing that surprised me the most. I was expecting not being able to pretty much communicate with anyone, but most people here, especially those that work at restaurants or stores, can understand and speak a little English, and although menus and signs are in German, it’s pretty easy to understand what they mean with the context.

At A&M, we went to a meeting where they showed us a graph called “Culture Shock” that was supposed to represent how high or low we’d be feeling throughout the program. This first week instead of having a steady down slope, I felt a rollercoaster of emotions. And not just from day to day, but throughout the day I felt these different emotions of complete excitement and of deep nostalgia, but I kept reminding myself that what I was feeling was completely normal and that I just had to push through it. My host family and the friends I’ve made here so far have a lot to do with this too.

My host family is far better than I could’ve expected. They are so so kind and they really treat me as a part of their family and actively reach out to me and I really like that. They put so much effort into making sure that I am content and satisfied with my room and with everything that I have here. They also have two precious dogs, Leo and Pios, which make my stay even better.

The friends that I have made here have also exceeded my expectations. In a group of 21 people, I would have never expected everyone to get along so well, but so far there has been no problems and everyone is able to talk with each other. And even though there are already friend groups that were made, we all still hangout with each other.

I am excited for this upcoming week when classes will actually start, because even though I like all the excursions and all the “vacation,” I am looking forward to learning the medicine history of Europe and learning from the other classes in the curriculum.

This week has felt like the longest in my entire life, but it was most definitely one of the best.