United Nations

In every good family things can get a little heated from time to time.
Just like tonight at the dinner table: Javi, our 24 year old, tall, dark, and handsome Spanish roommate from Castellón, and Jared, our 21 year old, athletic, Jewish frat boy from Cincinnati (sorry, i always use the same adjectives for you) got caught up in a little cultural argument.
"You Americans always think you're the best!"
"And you Spaniards beat your wifes!"
"At least I don't shoot my classmates!"
"But you wear our clothes and you listen to our music!"
" $%&##$*!°§ !!!"
" §%'# *~&%% !!!!"
...
Of course the argument was not that serious, and soon we all laughed about it. But in a surrounding like this, with that many nationalities on so little room, arguments like this develop easily. But you learn with it. Facing people from all over the world, you are constantly forced to look at your own culture. You finally get to compare the things you learn from other people to what you learned at home, in your country. And this is one of the most enriching qualities this study abroad program has to offer. Both Europeans and Americans learn a lot from each other here, doesn't matter in which topic: soccer, food, geography, music, or vocabulary. Every possible issue is suddenly looked at from more than one side.

I think that's pretty cool and I as well suddenly learned facts about my country that I had no idea of before: Thanks to my American roommates I now know that all Germans appearantly are obsessed with David Hasselhoff. Thank you guys! :)