Article courtesy of the API Abroad Blog
By Patrick Durigan and Jenna Kersten
While traveling and living abroad, you certainly will often have
moments of awe. You will have moments of being absolutely blown away by
your surroundings and what you’re able to experience.
One of the weirdest things about studying abroad, however, is that
over time you begin to take certain things for granted. Not average
things, mind you, but huge, super cool and exciting things that you
normally would be in awe about. This is something that I’ve been trying
to be very conscious of recently, especially given the fact that my time
left in Berlin is decreasing ever-rapidly.
I find myself thinking weird things recently, such as:
“Oh, gosh. Not another castle.”
“Ugh, I have to go to the Berlin Wall Memorial today.”
“I really want to go to that poetry reading, but, like, I already
promised my friend that I would go to the flea market so I guess I
can’t. My life is awful.”
For example, upon browsing the things that I’ve written in my
planner, my reminder to write this particular post says, “Blog before
Prague.” Now, I love some good word play as much as the next English
major, but, in retrospect, I’m in awe about how causally I was able to
write that down. “Write a little something before going to beautiful
Prague, a place you’ve been wanting to go your whole life and now
actually can.”
I’m trying to remind myself to keep an awareness of how incredibly
awesome this opportunity is. Constant amazement can, in fact, lead to
desensitization. Taking full advantage of the opportunity to live
abroad, especially in light of the fact that I’ll be heading home so
soon, means becoming reacquainted with the intense astonishment of my
first few weeks here. I’m trying to be a little less casual with my
thoughts and actually appreciate the experience that I’m having.
Jenna Kersten is a student at Siena College and an official API student blogger. Jenna is currently studying abroad with API in Berlin, Germany.
Read more at http://blog.apiabroad.com/on-site/oh-gosh-not-another-castle-things-think-studying-abroad/
