My roommate and his friend from Canada are officially gone. I honestly didn’t think I would miss anyone from exchange because I hadn’t really met anyone at the beginning of exchange and just thought I would go through exchange without making strong connections. I’m thankful that I was wrong but having him AND my other friend leave was hard. To make things worse, I didn’t get up early enough to see my other friend off. Thankfully, I woke up just in time to see my roommate off. I think I just feel a little numb but also lonely. But that means exchange was successful. The friends I’ve made here have been absolutely amazing. There have only been maybe one or two people I didn’t really like, but aside from that I’d say 95% of the people I met I liked. I consider myself pretty picky in terms of who I want to hang out with so having such a high rate of people that I met versus people that I met and wanted to hang out with is really surprising. But like I said, at the beginning of exchange I really didn’t think I would meet people I really connected with. And even though I told myself that was probably for the best because I would end up missing them, I’d much rather miss my friends than have made no friends at all. I feel so blessed that I met these people because it’s all up to chance. Not just the fact that all of us studied abroad at the same time, but also how we met. It’s crazy to think about all the little things that went into me meeting the people I’ve met here. Maybe if the timeline of events were off by one second, I would not have met the people I met. Or for my roommate, maybe if I had sent in my application one second later, I would not have had him as a roommate. I’m not saying everything is connected or that destiny exists because I don’t think it does, I’m just commenting on the fact that so many things had to fall into place for me to meet these amazing people. Sometimes I think about how I would’ve had a great exchange even if I met different people. That may be true but the opposite could also be true. Maybe my roommate is terrible and that sets a bad precedent for meeting other people in my very introverted mind. Whatever the case, I’m satisfied, well more than satisfied, with my experience meeting people here.
My goal was to meet Danes and that was shared by a good amount of people on exchange that I spoke to as well. But someone made a good point that even though none of us (yes, no one met a Dane that they kept in touch with) completed that goal, the other people we met at CBS, as in the other exchange students, were great to meet. I’d have to agree. I am sad because I did want to meet Danes, and I honestly think I could have if I tried harder. But I met people that I really care about and that’s what matters, not their nationality or ethnicity. I can say that I have friends on almost every continent in a ton of different countries, and I’m very proud of that. Not that I was meeting people purely to mark a point on a map, but just that fact that I can say that I met a ton of different people from different cultures, I think is absolutely incredible, since this wouldn’t have been possible, or would have been much harder even 50 years ago. I feel so lucky that I got to do this, and not only complete an exchange program abroad, but also meet such amazing people.
It was really funny, when I first got here, my roommate joked that I was the quietest roommate ever because I arrived so late. I’m guess he was right to an extent but we were both very unproblematic (in my opinion). He was definitely cleaner than me, but after he got cleaning supplies I would help clean up our shared bathroom. It’s gonna be weird to be the only one cleaning now. But like I said, I’d rather experience this discomfort and slight sadness than have not met anyone and spent the entire semester in my comfort zone. I think that’s what made the people I met here truly special. Not many people can get me out of my comfort zone, but almost everyone I met made me feel even more comfortable and that led to me wanting to meet more people which led to feeling more comfortable. The best process I can think of for making friends. And even late into exchange, everyone was so welcoming which was really surprising since I was so late to everything. So I really have nothing bad to say and can only appreciate the people who were on exchange because with different people the experience could’ve been totally different.
We can clearly see who the photogenic ones are.