As many college students who have studied abroad can tell you, one of the hardest parts of the whole adventure is settling in to the place in which you live during your time in another country. Some students spend as little as six weeks abroad, while others may spend a good four years in another country. The experiences of the places in which you live vary from full-immersion programs, where you go to live with a host family that is native to the country in which you are studying, to American student centers where you live with students from your university. In host families, usually, no one speaks English, and you are expected to speak the language of the country you are in 24/7. In other programs, you live in dormitory-like settings with other students who are native to the country. These types of living situations are typical for students who aren’t expected to have complete fluency in a language, so that they can receive good exposure to the country’s culture and language, but not feel overwhelmed by being completely immersed in it. The last living situation, to which I am most familiar due to personal experience, is living in a center with other American students. All of your classes are in English, and you aren’t expected to be even close to fluent in the language of the host country. Each situation poses different difficulties in your day-to-day life, some more than others, and each affects a student in a very different way. When you live in another country for a prolonged period of time there are many things that can quickly wear on you: emotional stress from being so far from home, mental strain at the constant use of another language, the difficulty of balancing studying with traveling, and so many other things.

Now, as I am sure many of you can imagine, I went through many different mental mind frames concerning study abroad in between when I was accepted to the program, all the way up through the first month of study abroad. There was utter excitement, annoyance at packing, anxiety at flying and meeting a bunch of new people, fear at having to use a new language that I had only been learning for four months prior to my arrival in Austria, and even doubt about leaving home the night before my flight to Europe. As an independent and adventurous person, it was strange for me to go from never having second thoughts about being on my own and doing my own thing to suddenly worrying that I wouldn't fit in with the people at the center, or would get outrageously homesick. Throughout my three previous semesters of college, I almost never got homesick, even being 600 miles from home. So for me to suddenly feel so much fear and anxiety as I was boarding a plane to take me more than 5,000 miles away was distressing, to say the least. But, once I was settled in to my room and having dinner with classmates in the center, all of my doubts and worries disappeared.

One thing I found interesting, when first learning about the specific program I was going to be a part of, was that everyone in the program becomes like family by the end of the semester. I could see how that was the case, but I was skeptical nonetheless. You see, I lived in the only occupied single room at the center, so that in and of itself is somewhat of a social barrier. I am also not the most outgoing of people, and even though I know I can and should put forth a good amount of effort to get to know people, I tend to struggle with it. I won't lie and say that once I reached the center, everyone was warm and welcoming and super friendly; most people weren't. But there were small acts of kindness littered throughout my first few days at the center (in which I was extremely ill), that put me at ease.

Imagine this: you live in an apartment with three of your closest friends. You all know each other inside and out, you cook meals together, watch TV together, go on weekend trips together, and even have classes together. Suddenly, two new tenants (who are also students) move in to your apartment. You have plenty of space and resources for them, so that isn't an issue. But how does this affect the social atmosphere? And the comfort levels of each individual? Should you alter your daily routine and push yourself out of your comfort zone to accommodate the new-comers, or make a real effort to get to know them? Well, here's another factor put into play; you've been traveling for the last four weeks or so. You probably didn't get to see your family at all over the holidays that just passed. You are about to get back into the swing of classes with the start of a new semester. Do you have the energy to make two new friends? I know I wouldn't.

And so, with this being the atmosphere of the first few weeks at the center, I think I kind of cruised on my natural autopilot of independence, thinking that I could go to class and socialize at breakfast and dinner time, and that would be that. You can imagine with this going on why I didn't particularly see a picture of all 39 of us becoming one big, happy family. But the one thing I never saw coming was the way in which each of us would grow in such a short period of time.

I would say, that at least for myself, the turning point for when the personal growth really started was during the Spring Tour. Spring Tour is the school-run trip where we board a charter bus and drive from Salzburg, down through Italy, ferry across the Adriatic Sea to Greece, take the bus around Greece, and then ferry up to Venice, Italy. It was a two and a half week trip with stops in 20 different cities; cities which included Florence, Assisi, Rome, Pompeii, Athens, Olympia and Delphi. We would spend the days with tour guides, nights with organized group dinners, and then occasionally have free days and nights to wander the cities on our own.

I remember walking the length of the Arno in Florence with five of my closest friends, taking pictures and marveling at the Ponto Vecchio. We sang in the streets, posed in front of ancient statues and hunted for a wine bar. Nothing in my life is comparable to those nights, wandering in cities with monuments, art and buildings that are centuries old, and enjoying the smallest moments. During the tour, when we would go visit places like the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum and the ruins of Pompeii, we were all hit with the marvels of humanity. We saw, right before our eyes, paintings, buildings and statues that most people only get to see in photographs. And yet, even once the tour was done, I remember sifting through my memory and noticing that the best memories I obtained from the whole trip were ones in which I was spending time with people I was growing to care about. Seeing the Uffizi Gallery in Florence was not half as fun as watching two of my guy friends share the largest gelato cone I have ever seen in my life (and right in front of the Florence Cathedral, I might add).

(This was after all of the gelato and a third of the cone had already been eaten!)

Once the tour was over, and classes had resumed, we all seemed to break out of our shells, little-by-little. It helped that the snow in Salzburg had started to melt away, because it meant that we could spend more time outdoors, instead of cooped up in our rooms. I began playing volleyball with people in the center that I had only had the briefest of conversations with previously. Afternoon breaks from studying morphed from ones spent on the couches in the living room watching TV to taking a quick walk over to the park where we could throw the Frisbee, bump the volleyball, or even in some cases, walk out to a small basketball court at the back of a church’s parking lot.

As someone who socializes through sports, this was the best development for me because it meant I could be comfortable striking up conversations with people that I wanted to get to know better. Something about playing sports helps me to fall into my comfort zone and open up to people how I normally wouldn’t. This new level of comfort started washing into all the different aspects of my daily life in and around the center and helped me to begin forming some very valuable friendships with people who I am not sure I ever would have known had it not been for the fact that we were in Salzburg together during this particular semester.

Fast forward a couple of weeks after Spring Tour; I have gone out drinking with a bunch of the students that I hadn’t previously known well at all. We play games, laugh, joke and talk on the walk home from the beer hall. I didn’t even think anything of it at the time, other than the fact than it was a very fun night. Looking back on it now, I realize that I had finally begun putting myself out there more than I ever would have previously. Something about being so far away from home, and sometimes so far out of your own element, helps you to get a grip on your self-consciousness. I no longer cared about how I may appear to others, physically or otherwise, and that allowed me to finally loosen up a bit and enjoy the company of the people I was with. When you start to let go of your own insecurities, you are left with so much more mental capacity and time to simply enjoy the people and things around you.

By the end of the semester, there were several conversations bouncing around the center about summer, next school year and what it meant for the semester to be coming to a close. A few brave souls, during an event held at the center called the Mr. and Ms. Salzburg competition, got up in front of the entire center and expressed how they believed they had each personally grown during their semester, or year, in Salzburg. Every single person came to the conclusion that the people in the program were the driving factor in each of their growths as individuals. And that, I believe, is what drove us to being a true family. While being among the most beautiful places in Europe, we all realized that the experience itself was only as amazing as the people we were sharing it with.

"Family isn't always blood. It's the people in your life who want you in theirs; the ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile & who love you no matter what." - Unknown