Dreaming of Germany

I was dreaming about studying in Germany for a long time and when I got the acceptance letter from RheinAhrCampus, saying that I was surprised is to say nothing. Even now, I remember that evening, when I opened my email and was just staring at it without understanding what was going on.

My first expression about Remagen was the beautiful view of the Rhein and the friendly people on the streets. Everybody greets you on the street even if you do not know them and it creates a big smile on your face. Then I met people, who was trying to do their best to make my and other exchange students` life here as interesting and good as they could. Dr. Rashimah Rajah and Dr. Laurent Borgmann was our little family here. They tried to spend a lot of time together with us and showed us what they could. Rashimah took us for our first hiking trip to Erpeler Ley. Dr. Borgmann (or Laurence how he allowed calling himself) baked for us “lambs” for Easter. I was impressed by how much they care about us. Then we had more events together like Cherry Blossom Street, International Week, Christopher’s Street Day and many barbecues. I can say that every event changed my mind at least for a bit. Also there are among the most kind human beings in the world Andreas Faulstich and Barbara Neukirchen. Whenever we saw them, they were smiling to us and if we have any questions they were ready to spend time with us.

When it comes to people around me, I think I can speak for an infinite time about them. We had exchange students from Spain, Jordan, Finland, and Lithuania, which made my semester fun. As well, I found many friends among German students. I can’t explain with words how colorful my semester was due to these people in my life. It was priceless when we with Jordanian students could share the Ramadan experience with others and Fran, Tanja, Jonathan, Emilia - people who never tried it before - were fasting with us. I experienced here what party is like as well and we all went to ErstiParty where we celebrated the beginning of our semester.

Our classes were not less interesting than other events in our life. I had the pleasure to meet Dr. Jerome from USA in my International Marketing class, who was here for one semester. I got the opportunity to be CEO at the International Business Simulation class and I can proudly say that we did a good job there. As well, I was able to have TOEFL exam for free and now I have a silver certificate in my hands.

I said already a lot, but I can’t ignore another bonus of spending a semester here. I got the opportunity to travel, what can be better for a student who can’t spend a lot of money on travelling. I was in France, Italy and Belgium and it is like magic in my life. I saw a lot, met new people and took a piece of every place where I had been. My heart now is full of different emotions which make me incredibly happy and make me believe that if you want something you need to just try and your dreams will come true.

It was my first experience of living alone in another country which has a completely different culture from mine, and I am so happy that I have this experience now. I think, I changed a lot during these six months and learnt many new skills. Due to this experience, I understood that I want to be as international as I can and not sit on one place. Only go ahead and ahead.