Ich Habe So Viel Gelernt!

I know this blog is quite late but I have been so busy enjoying my last week in Stuttgart. I am currently sitting in Frankfurt airport waiting for my flight back home and while I sit here I am thinking about my time in Germany. Ich habe so viel gelernt! I have learnt not only about the language and the culture here but also about myself. It was a real challenge here to begin with. I have never lived away from home before so settling in to a new environment was quite difficult, but once I started to get used to it here then it was fantastic. I had a great experience with my host family who looked after me very well and living with them also helped me to experience German culture. I definitely recommend staying with a host family as mine were more than willing to suggest things for me to do and places for me to go. They took me to Hohenzollern and Tuebingen, and allowed me to experience German food by taking me out to dinner. 

This program has really helped me to improve my German skills. Although forming a sentence still takes a while for me, my ability to understand a conversation in German has become a lot better. I have spent so much time listening to German conversations that German now features in my dreams. I feel as though this course has really assisted me and I now feel a lot more confident about my German ability. 

I have to say that this has probably been the best experience of my life. I have made some great friends here that I am very sad to leave, and my last week involved a lot of time with them. I feel as though this program has made me gain a new confidence by putting me in a situation where I had to adapt, and now I am so used to it here that I don’t want to go home. I have definitely been bitten by the travel bug and I already plan to come back to Germany in June. 

I encourage everyone to take the opportunity to go on this exchange or any exchange because it is a wonderful experience that teaches you a lot about yourself and other cultures. It gives you the opportunity to learn in a different way to at home, to make great friends from different places, and to experience something new. 

I have to say thank you to everyone who was involved in this program, especially all my friends here, for making my time here so enjoyable and memorable. I’m really going to miss the people and the place and I really can’t wait to come back.

Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland!