Friends from across the Globe

My exchange semester is coming to an end and I can say, I achieved my two biggest goals. I improved my German language and more importantly, I made friendships, which I know will last.

When I first arrived in Remagen, I felt a bit disappointed, because Remagen is a small and quiet town and I am used to living in a bigger city. However, after a while I found myself enjoying the small town atmosphere and the connections to other big cities were great. With the student card we could travel for free to nearby big cities like Köln, Bonn and Koblenz and we took advantage of this.

Coming here and finding accommodation was easier than I anticipated, because I got a lot help from the student coordinator and tutor. I enjoyed living in the student dorms because they were right next to the campus and the room was nice.

There were many courses to choose from and I could easily get all the courses I needed. I really enjoyed that it was possible to take part in weekend seminars. I attended three different seminars and because of this, I had an easier timetable in the week. An extra German course was created and offered to my friend and me and I am thankful for it. Sprachen / Internationales office was always really helpful and it was easy to approach them if there were any problems.

There were some fun events during the winter semester. We celebrated Oktoberfest in Bonn and in Remagen in the beginning of October. In the end of October, we had our own Halloween celebration. In November, we dressed up in costumes and went to Köln to celebrate Karneval. In December we visited Christmas markets in different cities, which was my favourite thing of all.

The best thing about my exchange experience are all the people I got to know from different countries. I got to know people from Germany, Portugal, Spain, Lithuania, Azerbaijan, Brazil and Korea. I made new friends, I also learned a lot from different cultures, and we taught each other our languages and could see things from very different perspectives. We will probably never be in this same group in the same place, because we all live in different places around the globe, but we will always share this experience together.