Tour de Angers, France

Sometimes I think it’s a little crazy that my first step I took after graduating high school was figuring out how I could go 5000 miles away from everything I’ve ever known. I think it’s even crazier that my parents were okay with sending their freshly 18-year-old daughter to a completely different continent.

In January of 2024, all of the dreams that I had of immersing myself in another culture were realized. I remember sitting in the airport, alone, waiting for my plane and crying. I don’t really know what made me cry. It might’ve been that I was excited for what was to come, or that I had realized just how long six months away from home was going to feel.

I’d like to say that this sort of crying was a one-time thing, but I spent my first three weeks in my new home, Angers, France, in tears. I kept a journal of my experiences while abroad and there’s a distinct moment where you can see the entries change from “I miss my family” to “I never want to leave.”

Before I knew it, my six months had come to an end. In the same manner as before, I found myself waiting for my plane crying. Since my return to the United States, I’ve been asked more times than I can count about “How was France?” At first the question was frustrating. How was I supposed to explain that this medium-sized, not very well-known town in France was now a place I considered one of my homes?

It sounds cliché, but all it took was less than six months to call somewhere else home. I could say it was the warm nature of Angevins, the charm of the town, “my” étang (pond) that I discovered a five-minute walk from where I lived… It was all of those things, but it was also so much more.

Some of my fondest memories of Angers were cooking dinner in the community kitchen. In particular, I recall many nights where my friends that lived on my floor, predominantly Muslims, were celebrating Ramadan. My dear friend, Taha, was insistent on including me in their traditions. The most special part was that I was invited to breakfast with them—though I had not been fasting—by eating a date.

I remember how generous my friends were to answer questions like “How do you know when you can eat?” Turns out, most of them had an app on their phones that would tell them down to the exact minute that they could eat. This intersection between new technology and old traditions was especially fascinating.

These nights at dinner would also often develop into conversations about my own culture, offering me the chance to share with the people I was surrounded with. Usual topics ranged from politics, to sports, to current events, to common things to do in Wyoming. I was met with an unmatchable curiosity about things that I consider to be normal, that weren’t to them.

While not as distinct in my memory, I also had the opportunity to learn about cultures around the world, notably Argentina, Hong Kong, Kyrgyzstan, Finland, Germany, and Belgium. Learning about all of these cultures is something I hold very close to my heart, even though learning about French culture was my initial intention.

French culture is such an interesting concept. It confuses a lot of people and French people are often stereotyped as “mean”. Instead, I met kind and generous people that were more than happy to help, speak English when needed (though I do speak and understand French), and were so welcoming. This was a pleasant surprise and alleviated the anxiety I had built up around interacting with native French people.

Another really influential part of studying abroad was my school and the classes I took. Every class was in French, studying French literature. The best way to describe this would be like me, a native English speaker, majoring in English in the US. That was the level of analysis we were expected to be able to do. I was often the only exchange student in the classroom, which was incredibly isolating.

On each of my first classes, I walked up to my professor and said, “Bonjour, je m’appelle Sophia. Je suis étudiante d’échange des États-Unis” which translates to “Hello, my name is Sophia. I am an exchange student from the United States.” Introducing myself was daunting, especially because I knew that everyone waiting to speak to the professor was listening to me. But I was met with warm smiles and usually a “C’est bon!” as well.

Throughout the semester, I had multiple literary analyses in each of my classes. Not only did my professors grade those fairly, which I very much appreciated, they also gave me feedback on grammatical structures and the ways that native French speakers write, which they didn’t have to do. My classmates were welcoming and friendly, and in each class there was always someone who would say, “If you don’t understand and need it translated, let me know!” which took an inexplicable amount of pressure off of understanding every little detail.

The nature of Europe allowed me to visit more countries—like Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. I visited many castles, museums, and churches, and also had the opportunity to visit the tulip fields in Amsterdam, Sachsenhausen in Berlin, and the CERN physics lab in Geneva.

Other notable parts of my experience were our group project in my conversation workshop, the Erasmus events that all of my friends attended, taking multiple trips to Paris, our visit to Nantes, going to St. Malo (where we got to swim in the *very cold* English Channel), and visiting my host family in the south of France where I went skiing for the first time. Spending six months abroad was more than I could’ve ever imagined, and I’ve come back to the US with a strong appreciation for and knowledge of cultures from around the entire world.

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