Semester Worth Staying

Hello! I am Giorgi from Georgia and I want to share with you my experience of the second semester abroad. I arrived in Germany in September 2020 and at the end of the year, I was offered the chance to stay for one more semester – as you can see, I took this opportunity. I hoped that the summer semester at RheinAhrCampus would be completely different, with more opportunities, and new experiences - and I was right about it.

From the very beginning of this semester, as a part of my internship, I was helping new exchange students to get settled in Remagen. The moment I met them I saw them confused, amazed, and afraid at the same time. I was happy to help them and shared my experience with them. This helped me to get closer to them and we became close friends in a very short time. Moreover, I had a Jordanian flatmate who was also doing an exchange semester at RheinAhrCampus. It helped a lot to practice my English speaking with him, as we were communicating all days long. We cooked our traditional foods and I was lucky to taste Jordanian traditional dish – Mansaf. It is basically lamb cooked with a sauce of special yogurt and rice. I got closer to Arabic culture and also learned some words in this language.

One of my favorite parts of this semester is that we stayed active – we played basketball on campus almost every second day. There was also a new ping-pong table installed and we spent a lot of time playing there. There were two friends of mine I could not beat – Komninos from Greece and Surya from India. I will practice a lot before our reunion and hopefully will take my revenge. We also joined the university tennis club and met new people from Germany. They were very friendly and supportive. So, if you come to RheinAhrCampus, make sure you join the sports clubs, it is the easiest way to integrate and connect with new people.

One more common interest I found with other students was football, and this semester was special because we had Euro 2020 going on and all of us gathered together to watch the matches. After Germany was eliminated from the cup, we started supporting Italy and surprisingly they became the champions. With Greek, German and Jordanian students I went to Cologne, set in the bar and enjoyed beer and the final of the championship. England was playing against Italy. After the match was over, people in the whole Cologne went out with their cars, honking non-stop and waving Italian flags. We rented electric scooters and joined the parade. It was a great night – a lifelong memory.

And the best part of this semester was that we were able to travel again. As Covid in Germany “disappeared”, I started to plan my trips to see as much as I could. We went to Luxemburg, Netherlands, France and Brussels (not to mention Germany’s famous cities like Dusseldorf, Trier, Berlin). I visited Amsterdam and Paris, and they still remain my favorite cities so far.

As a professional side, I also had a huge improvement - I took an internship at RheinAhrCampus. One of my favorite tasks was Podcast “Absolutely Intercultural”. Together in a team, we took the interviews and listened to many interesting stories from different people with diverse backgrounds. I worked with an amazing team and as a leader, I learned how to delegate and encourage people.

I have so much to tell but here is the end of the page. If you are reading this and considering doing an exchange semester abroad – JUST DO IT. You will take a lot from here: friends, memories, experiences, and skills improvements. Everything you need to enjoy your student life.