If someone had told me that the biggest challenge in Germany wouldn’t be the language, the weather, or the academics—but learning how to make eye contact with strangers—I would’ve laughed. Yet here I am, months into my student life, still unsure whether to smile at the cashier or keep the “German seriousness” expression.

Germany is a strange mix of discipline and freedom. The trains run like clockwork, the streets look like they were drawn with a ruler, and even the dogs seem better behaved than most people back home. But then you walk into a student dorm kitchen and see the chaos left after a shared cooking night—and suddenly the universe feels balanced again.

As a Pakistani student, I live a double life. Back home, everything is loud—conversations, traffic, laughter, emotions. Here, silence is the default. Even in my university library, I swear I can hear my own heartbeat. At first, it felt intimidating. Now it feels… grounding. Almost peaceful.

But the real adventure is outside class. Grocery shopping feels like a linguistic exam. Ordering Döner at 2 AM is a cultural ritual. Riding a bike in freezing wind builds character—or at least that’s what I tell myself while my hands go numb. And don’t even get me started on German bureaucracy. Every form looks like a riddle with multiple wrong answers.

Yet, in the middle of all this confusion, something unexpected happens—you grow. You adapt. You learn that home isn’t a single place. Some days, home is the smell of chai I make in my tiny shared kitchen. Other days, it’s the feeling of successfully holding a five-minute conversation in German without panicking.

Living in Germany hasn’t just taught me how to be independent—it has taught me how to be patient, resourceful, and open to becoming a different version of myself.

And maybe that’s the real reason we leave home:
not just to study, but to discover who we can become when everything familiar is far away.