8 – Fremmede

Spontaneity is the best kind of adventure

— Anonymous

Everything started when I walked into the bagel shop where we had agreed to meet up. Lugging my carry-on beside me, I cautiously approached the table where two girls were talking, one eating a bagel and the other doing her makeup. This was my first time seeing the faces of my two unknown travel-mates, the people behind the text messages in our “Travel Week 1” group chat that I had been a part of for several weeks now. Many thoughts had been swirling around in my head. Would they like me? Will I fit in? What if things go terribly wrong and I’m stuck with these random people for the next week with no means of escape?

With these worries filling my head, my heart jumped as the girl eating her bagel stopped and turned to me. “Hey, you must be Sam,” she said with a smile.

A sudden feeling of relief gripped me as the waves of anxiety and tension that had been building up inside me leading up to this meeting evaporated. These two girls now had faces, personalities, and lives that impacted me. Without ever meeting them, I had signed a tacit agreement to coexist with them for the duration of the trip. In my opinion that is a big undertaking. So many things could’ve gone wrong, but I’m happy to report that my travels with them were nothing short of awesome.

Maybe it’s just me who feels that pressure in these circumstances, but after you’ve had your fair share of botched interactions, it’s hard not to be somewhat wary of agreeing to spend a vacation with people you might have nothing in common with. I guess I might’ve had a different childhood than most people though, living in a small town and growing up with the same group of people for most of my life. But studying abroad and even just going to college is about challenging your norms, and that’s what I feel like I did (on a small scale) this week.

I know it is very clichéd for people to say that “studying abroad changed me,” but I feel like you are missing the point of it if you just fall into your normal routine in another country. While I don’t have the greatest history of following through on my promises, the best part of going on a trip like I did was that all it takes to commit is the ability to say “yes.” That works well for me because it takes the burden to follow through off of my easily-swayed willpower and into the hands of social obligation, something I’m much better at listening to.

Yes gets you so many experiences in life, which is why I try to say it to most of the opportunities I am offered. Yes to studying abroad, yes to living in a homestay, and yes to traveling with new people. This past week, I said yes to going on an adventure and I met some great people along the way.