My last day in Naples was filled with tears and worries. I said goodbye to my boyfriend and my parents and cried more than I thought I could have. I was excited to finally arrive in Copenhagen yet anxious that it would be impossible to meet anyone due to living just over an hour commute away from the city.

When I arrived at the airport, I made my typical Starbucks run and ran into a fellow DIS student, Rebecca. We waited for our flight together and rambled along about the numerous expectations and goals and fears that we had anticipated for our upcoming four months abroad. Most importantly, we both planned to sleep on our eight hour flight to Frankfurt (spoiler alert, neither of us did!)

Our arrival in Frankfurt was almost a blur to me. I just remember finding another group of DIS students who we ended up sticking with for the rest of our journey to the Clarion Hotel. I was the only person in that group who ended up being in a Homestay so we went our separate ways once we arrived and I met my host family!

I think everyone has common fears when it comes to living with another family. Will we get along? Will I like the food? Will I be able to spend enough time with them while also balancing my social life in the program? Luckily, my host family has two older boys that are around my age so it made the adjustment period very quick and easy. I almost feel like I am at home in my homestay – in many ways my host family is like my family in the way that we all make fun of each other. We communicate very well and we clearly communicated all of our expectations the second day into living together. The questions that DIS came up with to communicate topics between the student and the hosts are quite comprehensive and covers almost all potential questions that may arise living in someone else’s home. Since living in my homestay, I have also discovered my absolute LOVE for rhubarb.

I did not realize how difficult time differences and jet lag would be. I knew that I would have a six hour difference between my loved ones but I notice myself wanting to call someone on my walks in the morning and text my mom about my days at night even though it’s the beginning of her afternoon. I also didn’t sleep for the first three nights that I was here. I would fall asleep until about 3am and stay up for the rest of the night. I still had fun and long days after that but I could feel how exhausted I was. I think I have beat the jet lag now but I am more tired than I was before. It has been a constant game of catching up with sleep, making time for a social life and spending time with my host family. My advice to everyone who wants to come to this program is to sleep on the flight and also buy every single type of blister pad so you can tire your body out after jet lag without ruining your feet. The cobblestone is a killer.

Monday morning was the first day of the Arrival Workshop. DIS organized so all students would sit on the first carriage of the train. At this point, the only person I knew was still Rebecca so you know I sat myself on the front carriage of that train. Luckily, we all found each other and a group of us found our way to the location. We even grabbed coffee beforehand (which was not allowed inside the Academy of Music). Bryn, a girl who is on the train stop ahead of me, myself and a few other people stood by as we drank our coffee and almost moments later, Rebecca walked into the Academy.

I think it is important to note that most new DIS students are in the same situation as everyone else. We are all looking for new people to spend our days with. Even if other students from our home universities will be there, sometimes there are some who want to break away from the pack. Since that first day, the three of us, and now another girl Meagan, have spent so much time together exploring Copenhagen. Everyone that I have met thus far has been extremely friendly and welcoming. We are all here for different reasons but we all chose Copenhagen.

In the past five days I have had family dinners, visited Netto, had picnics in random Danish parks, seen the vast variety of baby carriages, taken the metro the correct way, travelled to Reffen to explore their 48 different food options, explored Superkilen, spent $50 on bottles of wine over sushi, and formed great connections to people who I did not know just a few days ago.

Content is the best word to describe how these first few days have been in Copenhagen. Yes, I miss my boyfriend and my family and I have those moments where I want the comfort of my loved ones, but I have also found a happiness and peacefulness that I feel like I have been searching for. And it is just the beginning. And to anyone who is studying abroad or is going into the unknown, breathe and remember who you are. Everything works itself out in the end and every experience is what you make it.

Many college students adjust to leaving their family and friends from home once they are heading into their junior year of college. Whether they are far or just few minutes away from home, that fear of adjustment that was faced freshman year is almost minuscule now. For those who study abroad, that fear slowly creeps up again. There is a rush of excitement yet also anxiety of the unknown.

I am exactly one week away from leaving my house in Naples, Florida to drive to the airport in Tampa. It is almost a numbing feeling from the intense excitement from embarking on a new adventure but it is also mixed with the sadness and also anxiety of leaving my family and boyfriend behind. I think going into a new environment blindly is an interesting conundrum. I have spent most of my summer enjoying the time that I have with my loved ones, leaving little room for myself to pack and prepare for my upcoming trip to Denmark. It is almost a balancing act, giving the emotional support to your loved ones before your long absence while trying to find the time to support your own worries about going to a new place. Since receiving my housing location, I have been googling everything that I should possibly know about Copenhagen; my host family even gave me a short documentary to watch on Denmark to catch me up. It is a strange feeling to be transitioning from such a stark end filled with commitments and worries while preparing for also a definite new beginning.

I am the kind of person who adapts easily to new situations. Stress does not tend to keep me up at night but the same thoughts have been running through my head since I got accepted to DIS. I don’t know how far I can expand the money that I have. I wonder if I will have the same social life I have at my home university given my host family is an hour train ride away from my classes. On the other hand, having a host family gives me the opportunity for the cultural immersion that I long for. As an anthropology major, my professors always say that becoming one with a society is the only way to truly understand one. Living like a local and letting go of my “American-ness” is something that I hope to do when I am in Denmark. I want to be able to embrace minimalism (although my suitcase is not exactly showing that) and I want to let go of technology, only focusing on the present moment. My program is taking me to Amsterdam for a week, and one of my courses on the Holocaust is taking me to Hamburg. I want to explore and be immersed into each place I go, learning as much history and culture that I can take in. Also being Jewish, going to the concentration camps in Hamburg will be a humbling experience for me. It is one thing to learn about the horrors that were faced by Jews, LGBTQ+, gypsies, among others, but it is another to actually see where these events took place.

Coming to Denmark allows me the opportunity to focus on myself and my future. I learned about DIS through a simple Google search, as I was searching for a program focused on sex trafficking. At my home university, I volunteer at a coffee shop that donates 100% of its proceeds to anti-human trafficking campaigns. Through my involvement at the cafe, and my anthropology classes always having us draw our focus on to a single topic, I started to watch video after video and read article after article about human trafficking. The spring of my sophomore year I embarked on a research project with one of my professors who specializes in Southeast Asian studies. The research began as looking at the micro-loan system in India and turned into researching the monetary value of human and sex trafficking in Southeast Asia, primarily in Cambodia and Vietnam. My studies at DIS will allow me to the opportunity for a hands-on application to a field that I want to advocate for in the future. Although my passion towards this field is strong, the emotional side of it is something that often worries me. Whenever one is dealing with humans, it takes a different level of learned ethics and emotional stability to deal well with these topics. I always need to remind myself that taking a mental break from some of the negatives of the trafficking industry is necessary.

The closer I get to August 17th, the more excited I feel about making this transition abroad. I am coming with no expectations, I want to experience my time there without judgment and I hope I come out as a better person. I think self-growth is an important goal, no matter what your life path is.

Until next time, see you in Copenhagen!