Take a group of people close to your age with several of the same interests and a similar sense of adventure and give them the opportunity to spend a four to six weeks travelling, working, and learning together. Now try to find a better group of friends.
Day
to day life as an engineering student can really rob a person of his or her
social life. At the end of my third year at the University of Illinois I was
feeling pretty cut off and fairly lonely. I did not go to Germany to make
new friends. I went because I needed to in order to finish my minor in German,
and because I though it would be a nice break after an extremely hectic semester.
I didn't even expect to like the rest of the people on the trip.
Once again, I was wrong. (I'm starting to get used to it.) The first day of
classes I met several students, American, German, and even Spanish, that forced
me to rethink my stereotype.
I made friends immediately with some of the other students in my language class,
Jack, Diane, Anna, and Matt. They were all U of I students, except for Matt, and
I kept forgeting that he wasn't. I also met a group of really cool girls from
a technical school in Worchester, MA. I did not even know that there would be
non-U of I students there until Laura approached me in the street on the first
morning and asked me in German where the University was. Laura introduced me
to her friends Kate and Sonia, who made up probably the most interesting trio
in our group.
The largest group of students was the U of I people: Luke, Adam, Heidi, Matt,
Jen, Anna, Diana, Jack, Brian, Becky, Tricia, Criag, and me. The Massecusetts
group was next largest with: Laura, Kate, Sonia, Bruce, Art, Jay, Jen, Brittany,
and Nick.
There was also a group of German students that were tutors or "Tandem-Partners"
(and idea to match each summer student with a German student, that never actually
worked). They were great, for the most part. Bruce had a tandem partner that kind
of scared the rest of us, but most of them were friendly, helpful, and alot of fun.
Since we all got to live with host families, we got an opportunity to really meet
and interact with the Germans. I stayed with the Woelfer family, Thomas, Heike, and
five-year-old Henri (who never got over being scared of me). The were very nice, but
we never spent much time together. It seemed every time the program gave me time to
stay home, the Woelfers went out.
Our neighbors, Jan and Gisela Brezina, Bruce's host family, always invited me to take
day trips or to dinner. Even after Bruce left, and I took the intership, they invited
me over, took me siteseeing, and taught me about Germany and Europe.