When I first landed in Germany for my master’s, I thought I was ready for everything — the language, the culture, the food. What I wasn’t ready for was the silence. Back home in Pakistan, life is noisy — horns, chatter, laughter spilling from tea stalls. Here in Berlin, everything felt too quiet, too orderly. Even the trams move politely.

The first few weeks were the hardest. I’d smile at classmates and get polite nods in return. Small talk isn’t exactly a German specialty. And the weather — let’s just say I understood why people fall in love with sunshine. But slowly, something shifted. It started with small things — a German classmate offering to help me with a project, a professor who remembered my name, and an elderly lady at the market who insisted I try her homemade pretzels “on the house.”

One of my favorite memories is from my dorm kitchen. A few of us — students from India, Nigeria, Turkey, and Germany — decided to cook together. I made chicken biryani, and when the whole corridor smelled like cardamom and fried onions, people started knocking on the door asking what magic was happening inside. That night, we sat around a tiny table, laughing over mismatched plates, trading stories about childhoods half a world apart. It felt like home — just in a different accent.

Studying in Germany has taught me more than what’s in textbooks. I’ve learned how to survive on 5-euro grocery runs, how to navigate bureaucracy that requires ten different forms, and how to find warmth in people once you earn their trust. Germans may not say much, but when they do, they mean it.

Sometimes I still miss Karachi — the chaos, the spice, the comfort of my mother’s chai. But now, when I walk through a cold Berlin street, hands tucked in my pockets, I realize something: home isn’t a place anymore. It’s the people who make you feel seen — whether they’re sitting next to you in a library or sharing your biryani at midnight.