A thousand smile pictures!

Dear readers,

My name is Lorena Luarasi and I had the opportunity to be part of the Erasmus+ Program for the second semester here in RheinAhrCampus, in Germany. This time I will tell you about my experience focusing more on the experience and the people I enjoyed it with. 

I started this semester with the chance to perfect my German with an intensive course I did in Bonn. I used the money the Erasmus+ gave me for travel to my home country to pay for it. This way I also contributed to the GreenErasmus idea and didn’t fly to my home country. This made my second semester even more challenging than I had expected in the beginning. After spending New Year away from my family for the first time, I also had to leave away from them for almost one year. In my home country, I would have never had the chance to be so independent and now I treasure the connection with my family more.

As the semester started I took on more leadership roles and had to challenge myself to be not just an organized, hardworking person, but also to help the new students get adjusted to the new tasks and responsibilities. However, I felt every day more and more confident and Germany become soon my home.

I was truly lucky that right after the winter season, the pandemic situation seemed to be better so that more things around the campus were open. Mensa cafeteria became a place again to meet each other during lunchtime and share stories. I loved being on campus with people inside finally. Of course, the experience with more people around us is even more unforgettable.

I used the decreasing number of infections to travel. Luxemburg, Trier, Frankfurt, Valencia, and Barcelona are only some of the countries and cities I have been to. In the last two months of my stay, the German government offered the 9 Euro ticket that allowed me to travel with very low expenses. In the last month of my stay, I used this opportunity to travel around Germany with friends from the campus as well as exchange students.

Now, after one year here I am also a bit afraid of turning back since I am feeling like going to Albania will bring me again out of my comfort zone. On the other hand, I am looking forward to the other opportunities I have now at home and I am confident I will be coming soon back to Germany.

I was looking through my photos and was impressed by all the happy faces that were in countless photos that will stay with me forever. Creating a cloud to save all of them was a necessity since my laptop storage can not hold them anymore. I can not express how lucky I feel to have had this chance and I thank every one of the people who made this experience the most beautiful and unforgettable in my life.

With love,

Lorena