by Drew Woodson

Created on: October 20, 2008

When I stepped off the escalator into the train terminal, I felt like I was Neil Armstrong hopping down the ladder to step foot on the dusty surface of the moon. I was sixteen and newly arrived for an exhange program in Germany. I knew very little German and nothing about foreign travel, but the struggles I encountered in that trip left me more confident in all aspects of my life.

My German hosts met me at the train station. And luckily, they spoke enough English to help me through my first trialfinding and using a bathroom. Finding one was easy enough, but I had to pay to enter the toilet, and I had no small change. After some frantic arm-waving, the attendant had pity on me and let me in for free. Paying to use the bathroom? I had never encountered such a thing in South Carolina.

Everything from the trains to the food to the beds struck me as strange. But as I made them more and more a part of me, I began to see my hosts as more than foreigners. I saw them as friends and then as family.

Most importantly, I realized that the world is large and I am small, a lesson that every teenager needs to learn. This geographic humility forced me to reconsider opinions that had previously been foreclosed. Dinner does not have to be at six. It can be at eight, nine, or ten. And one does not have to travel by car. A bike will work, or a train, if it is too far.

I am a teacher now, and I long to teach my high schoolers the lessons I learned while living in a strange land. I long for them to see America from a distance and realize that while its values are great and its people proud, America is only one of the many places people call home. Though I try to teach these lessons through literature and class discussion, there is no substitute for experience. I counsel parents to let their children go on foreign trips whether through school, church or independent organizations like EF. While it may be hard to let them go, the experience will help them become the independent adults all parents hope their children will be.

When I arrived back home, I looked out the passenger side window and saw my hometown newly. Although I was back at home, I still felt like a traveler. I had gone into a foreign land, where even simple tasks were a struggle, where I did not speak the language or know the people, and I had returned feeling like no task, whether it be college or a new job, could be harder than what I had already conquered.

Learn more about this author, Drew Woodson.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.