Coming home was of course very exciting, reuniting with all the people and places I so desperately missed during my time abroad. Nevertheless, it also was a very hard transition. I felt myself longing for things that I had gotten to know and learned to love in Ghent. I started to look for certain sights, smells and sounds. After months of newness and stimulation, my life full of old routines almost seemed bland and dull. But after a while, even the familiar from home that became unfamiliar becomes a habit again. It seems like a cycle where in each phase you miss the previous one and yet learn to appreciate the current one.

Bigger, faster, further. During the last semester, everything seemed so much faster and more complicated to me. The transition from the small singular campus of the University of Lichtenstein to the large university complex of the KU Leuven was a big one. Seemingly countless locations spread across three campuses within the city, sometimes even in Brussels, made it harder than expected to gain a foothold at university. Finding out which course was taking place in which room on which day felt like a huge, rehearsed dance number that somehow everyone seemed to know the steps to except for me. To get answers you had to twirl and jump through countless links and websites, apps and emails, intranet messages and Googledrives, Drop-Boxes and WhatsApp groupchats. In the beginning it seemed impossible to keep up. However, after some time I seemed to get the hang of it. Little by little I started to get the steps and the stumbling dance of confusion became more fluid and everything seemed to fall into place more and more naturally. While everyday life was initially an adventurous dance full of new steps, over the weeks and months it became a well-rehearsed sway.

In some moments I had to survive in situations as a solo artist. For example, in my design studio I was the only non-Flemish speaking student and had to prove myself without a helping hand from other exchange students. I had to take a plunge and face the Belgians' initially somewhat cool reserved attitude. But as soon as I was able to get a step in, I was surprisingly quickly accepted into their midst. The Belgians may seem reserved at first glance, but it seems to me that they tend to wait until the other person is ready to make the first move. Respect for others is one of the most important parts of being together; you don't want to step on anyone's toes and be sure that they are truly comfortable. Once you get the hang of it, the Belgians are the best dance partners, both literally and figuratively.

Just like dancing, exploring the unknown is more fun when you don't have to do it all by yourself. While I am very grateful that I had many opportunities to develop myself further on my own, nothing was as precious to me as sharing this with my new friends. Now that I'm back home, I have to get used to the rhythm from home. It may now feel slower and less exciting to me than the new, fast, exciting one during my adventures abroad. However, that doesn't change its beauty of familiarity. And a well-known dance is the most fun, especially with old friends in the familiarity of home.