My first university event was an international student meet and greet, something I had been looking forward to since my arrival in Tübingen in hopes of finding another Midwesterner to bond with.
I saw a tall student across the room wearing a shirt with English writing. “Aaron; That seems pretty American to me,” I thought as I read his nametag.
“Hi, are you American?” I asked.
“Sorry, German.”
As the night went on, I met student after student and passed groups who had found others from their home country speaking in French, Arabic or Spanish, all while wondering why I was the only American to choose Tübingen as my study abroad destination.
Eventually, the coordinators took the microphone and had students raise their hands when their country was called.
“The United States of America.”
In a room of over 100 students, I was the only one to raise my hand. For the first time in my life, I felt noticeably different from everyone around me.
As a student abroad, it’s very easy to notice differences all around you. Though close to Wisconsin relative to other parts of the world, Germany’s culture is different than America’s in ways that I never would have anticipated and for which I never could have prepared.
Among my most interesting conversations have been those pointing out those differences.
I have spent the last week surrounded by international students, each with a slightly different perspective of me as an American.
On my first night in the country, I met someone who quickly showed me what I was in for during my year abroad when she asked me what my least favorite thing about Germany so far was. Still being new to the country and in a bit of a honeymoon phase, I couldn’t answer her question. Immediately, she went on to explain to me that her least favorite thing about America is something I have never thought twice about: the toilets.
Day after day I find myself in the same situation with students similar to her: “You’re American, right? Yeah, I thought so.” “And you must be the American?”
I don’t know what it is about me that makes my American identity so noticeable to my German, French, Azerbaijani and Mexican friends, but as we sit together over a drink or lunch, we can’t help but talk about how we were raised, what our governments value or why I’m the only one who doesn’t understand the metric system. They ask about our president, if American universities really have Greek life like in the movies and what it’s like to live in a country where the legal drinking age is 21. As an international relations major, I can’t help but notice how truly beautiful it is that each of us can share stories about our countries, offering a little window into the rest of the world.
— Shannon Rabotski is a 2016 graduate of Monroe High School and is a junior at Drake University spending the year studying abroad in Tübingen, Germany.
