At the beginning of my stay in Frankfurt, I was an observer. One thing I noticed quite quickly was how many people seemed to be physically active in their everyday lives. I would see people running along the streets, cycling through the city, or exercising in parks. What surprised me was how ordinary it all seemed. It was not limited to a particular age group or type of person. It simply seemed to be part of everyday life.

At first, this was unfamiliar to me. I had always known that exercise was good for you and that people went running or cycling, but I had never experienced it as such a visible and normal part of the environment around me. In Frankfurt, I was constantly exposed to it without actively looking for it. I would see someone running on my way to university, notice cyclists while travelling around the city, or see people exercising in parks. At some point, I realised that I was no longer consciously noticing it. Something that had initially seemed unusual had become part of my normal surroundings.

The interesting part was what happened next: I started running myself.

I cannot say that I made a conscious decision to adapt to German culture. Nobody encouraged me to run, and I did not start because I thought, “This is what people in Germany do, so I should do it too.” Rather, repeated exposure made the idea of running feel more accessible. Seeing other people doing it made it seem less like a special activity and more like something an ordinary person could simply decide to do.

Eventually, I put on my running shoes and got started. In the beginning, I did not have particularly ambitious goals. I just wanted to improve gradually and see what I was capable of. I started by running 2 kilometres without stopping and have tried to improve a little and increase the distance each time since. For someone who had not previously considered himself a runner, this felt like a meaningful achievement.

Looking back, I find this experience interesting because I am not sure whether I actually “adopted” a German cultural practice or simply discovered something about myself. Perhaps both happened at the same time. My environment exposed me to a behaviour that I had not previously considered part of my own lifestyle, and repeated exposure gave me the opportunity to try it. But ultimately, I was the one who decided to put on my shoes and run.

This changed how I think about intercultural learning. Before my exchange, I might have imagined intercultural learning as something that happens through conversations, learning about traditions, or consciously comparing different cultures. My experience with running showed me another side of it. Sometimes, cultural learning happens much more quietly. You live in a different environment, observe what people around you do, and gradually your understanding of what is “normal” changes.

It also changed my perception of myself. I used to think that I needed to identify with something before doing it. In this case, I did not see myself as a runner before I started running. I became one simply by trying it. This connects to a broader lesson I have taken from my time abroad: I do not always need to know beforehand whether something is “for me”. Sometimes, I can just try it and find out.

In that sense, the unfamiliar did not simply become familiar. It became part of me.

What began as an observation of other people eventually led to a change in my own behaviour. I arrived in Frankfurt as someone looking at a different environment and trying to understand it. Over time, I became more comfortable participating in it rather than simply observing it.

Perhaps that is one of the most valuable aspects of studying abroad and intercultural learning: we do not only learn how other people live. Sometimes, being exposed to another way of living gives us the chance to discover new possibilities for ourselves.