SPAIN - BARCELONA

Going abroad for a certain period of time is connected with a lot of new situations. The everyday life is different. The routine is different. The people you surround yourself with are different. You have to learn to get out of your comfort zone. Likewise, you are on your own and have to be able to handle any situation on your own. I had to learn to jump over my own shadow. Half a year connected with self-development, learning about yourself, experiencing new things and situations, ups and downs and much more.

I was able to learn many new things during my semester abroad. I am extremely grateful that I had the opportunity to take advantage of this and gain new experiences. Experiences that will shape my whole life. I lived alone for the first time in a shared apartment. I moved to a foreign city for the first time and had to create a new routine, meet new people, explore the surroundings and find out how people live in Spain. It was a new experience for me to move into an apartment with 3 strangers. I did not know anyone before. All 3 have different nationalities, one is from California, one from the UK and one from Canada. 4 different daily routines come together. 4 different characters meet. 4 different cultures meet. In addition, a different language of communication in the daily life than what I am used to at home. You talk about everything in English. It was definitely very interesting to hear how different their English is among themselves. They have different sayings depending on the country they grew up and a different pronunciation. To be honest, I didn't think too much about what it would be like in the apartment community before I went abroad. Rather, I was looking forward to meeting new people and having a good time.

I definitely had to get out of my comfort zone. We got along very well from the very beginning. That made life in Spain a lot easier for me. I felt very comfortable in my apartment. Of course, there were many new situations in everyday life. It is very important to communicate openly and honestly. It is also the little things that are important. For example, we didn't have a dishwasher and had to wash everything by hand. If someone left something standing for a longer time, we drew each other's attention to it in a nice way. In the same way, we created a cleaning schedule so that the apartment stayed clean. If one of us invited friends, we first discussed whether this was okay for everyone. Communication is very crucial so that everyone can feel comfortable and enjoy being in the apartment. I am very happy to have had such great roommates and to have made friends for life.

My daily routine was also completely dispersed for the first time. A new country, a new apartment, new people, a different university schedule and different leisure activities. I first had to get used to the new. I tried to introduce small routines at the beginning for the first time, such as my daily breakfast with a coffee and then going to the gym. Or the daily way to the university by subway. I also had the feeling that the weekend was completely mixed up with the weekdays. There weren't really the specific Saturdays and Sundays that are called weekends to which I was used to. You could arrange a lot of things yourself. I didn't know this from home either and it was new for me. But I settled in very quickly. All in all, I have noticed that I can cope well with new situations and that it is important to give yourself time to become comfortable with the new. I would say in any case, it is important to be open to new things, because you grow in your personality and experience things that will shape for a lifetime.