Coming to the end of my time abroad I am now reflecting back about how I have spent my time here. Now I am thinking about my favorite things that I did and the common thing that comes up is doing things with friends. Making good friends can really shape how you spend your days and weeks, for example my friends and I tried to meet up every week either to cook together or to go to a restaurant.

This really helped to keep in touch with some of our friends that were in our first summer German classes, but did not have similar classes during the normal semester. Finding things to do each week has helped me have a sense of structure that being abroad can feel void of from time to time – having these dinners, class and going bouldering each week was my structure.

While I did enjoy my occasional solo day trips to other cities, my favorite overall experiences are with my friends in these other cities. This makes me grateful for my willingness to say yes when someone wanted to go somewhere. Like when I went to Berlin with three of my friends, was it a very cool place to go around and see everything– I would say yes absolutely, but being with my friends there helped create a completely different story than if I had gone by myself.

One of my friends as a joke started to take videos and pretended to vlog where we were at, and I know in a few years I will take a look back at these videos and love to see a window back into how my friends and I are now. I believe taking these opportunities can really help to shape your experience while abroad.

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Learn more about this blogger’s study abroad program: IES Abroad: Environmental Studies and Sustainability in Freiburg