10 years since the journey began
In June 2012 I returned from a year abroad in the US on the Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange scholarship. Much more than having successfully lived abroad for a year at age 17 or having successfully applied and been granted a full scholarship, the real value I am starting to realize, lies in the growth of myself towards a peaceful, kind and aware human being.
The Preparation
Truth be told, at the time I left Germany for that year abroad, my teenage thoughts revolved a lot around the excitement of reinventing my identity, of getting a glimpse of the freedom that I’d always been told is the basis of the democratic understanding in the US… And of course, to seem cool in front of my friends, the challenge was also to show Americans how to party properly and to get an American girlfriend as part of that cultural exploration.
I still remember that day in March 2011 that my exchange organization called me up to tell me where I was gonna be heading. I picked up the phone to hear a woman on the phone from my exchange organization. She told me I was going to go live with a family in Wisconsin. At first I wasn’t sure I had understood her correctly. I’d never heard of a city called Wisconsin. It definitely didn’t sound like it was a place in California, New York or some other often desired place to go in the US. Turns out Wisconsin is a state in the Midwest. After the first shock I went back to being excited about the adventure and soon received the information on my host family. When I saw how much they were into sports, how “normal” they seemed and that I would have two host brothers my age, there was nothing in the way of starting the adventure.
!(https://whereisvinz.help/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/13566968_1301097289919021_8908567196142068355_n.jpg)*Seth, Vinz & Brady on the first day of school, September 1st 2011*
*Seth){kind=link}
!(https://whereisvinz.help/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/13584813_1301097363252347_7447933398188145088_o-1024x658.jpg)*Seth, Vinz & Brady at Reunion 07/2016*
*Seth){kind=link}
“Yeah yeah, my dad will soon be retarded.”
Of any adventure, the first few weeks and months are always some of the most exciting. Everything is new, everything is worth looking at or trying out. Also, everything is very exhausting, especially adapting to speaking a language other than your maternal. Luckily both of my host brothers were very accommodating, much like the kids I would meet from day 1. Everybody seemed to be psyched to have me with them and I was very warmly welcomed. At the same time, I soon made my first awkward experiences with the culture.
For example, I would always confuse the word retired with retarded and vice versa. That was especially awkward the first few weeks, when all the kids would throw pitiful and sometimes very irritated glances at me when they asked me what job my dad was doing for a living, and I would tell them that he would soon be retarded. In my memory it took about 2-3 weeks for my host brother Brady to finally tell me what I was actually saying. This was one of the instances where I learned that the American Culture sometimes only appears to be very direct, but in some regards actually is rather passive in feedbacking certain situations.
Another of those examples is the physical examination every teenager has to undergo before they are allowed to play sports in high school. Before I had my appointment all the kids would make fun of it, telling me that the doctor would touch my balls and that it would be super awkward. I didn’t believe them since I thought they were just joking. When I finally went to the doctor, I was surprised that it had not been a joke at all and that I ended up standing there coughing, while an unknown person felt around my balls, trying to make out whether there were any lumps indicating a medical condition.
The Good Times
During my year in the US I was able to fulfill a lot of things that I had on my bucket list at the time. Like learning to play ice hockey, which I still do as a hobby to this day. Being on the ice six times a week really gave me the opportunity to learn the art of skating and using a stick to navigate through intense situations to score a goal, or else help my team to succeed by throwing my body into the game.
Funny Story: In my first ever hockey game my host dad Mike was filming my first moves during the game. As it so happened, I received a pretty solid hit the first time I ever touched the puck in a hockey competition. Now I cannot possibly keep this from you, as the irony of it is just too funny. Mike’s words in the end sum up the whole scene pretty well: “Oh oh. That’s not good.”
What you don’t see: After the hit, I couldn’t feel my right arm and when I took a look at it, it was hanging from my body in a really awkward position, one that you couldn’t fake if you wanted to. Going to the bench the only words I had for my teammates in my shock were: “It’s broke”. Once the trainer got a look at my arm, the look on her face instantly told me that indeed this ain’t good. Since I couldn’t feel my arm at all (so no pain either), the trainer said we should just wait a couple of minutes until the pain comes to see what’s going on. Turns out that with the hit, a nerve in my arm was hit so that I could neither feel it nor move it. When the feeling came back, my arm was just fine and I could continue playing. So that was a lucky break I caught. Otherwise my hockey career would have been over before it had even started.
Another very lucky coincidence was the introduction of the Anderson family and my former girlfriend Emilie. Not only did I enjoy some of the happiest moments with them and Emilie; they also took me on innumerable trips and events that really made me travel around the whole state and discover the best places around the area I lived in. My gratitude goes out to them and their kindness and patience with me and some of the more difficult situations I found myself in.
Challenges ahead
While I had all of these great moments, I think that the challenging ones were those that really made me grow as a being. It’s the moments that move you to the edge of your comfort zone and sometimes even touch the personality border (situations that threaten your physical integrity or else deep rooted beliefs and cultural heritage; this is a place to mind or else be really aware of it being affected). Such moments were related to challenges in the intercultural understanding between my host family and myself at times. At the time I was not emphatic enough to understand the deeper layers of cultural differences and individual challenges we all face on a daily basis. That we all carry our traumas and packages and that we should therefore always be kind to each other and try to understand where the other person comes from. Of course this must be practiced both ways, which at the time did not work in some situations, so that I felt lonely, misunderstood and helpless at times. The only way I could compensate this was via my girlfriend Emilie, for which today I am really grateful, although I have not been in contact with her for years.
The spark that threw me off the path to apathy
I don’t believe much in predetermination. Rather I think that a good life is the result of developing the faculty of awareness for each and every moment. Then the quality of each moment in sum, will determine the overall quality of your life. The spark for the journey that leads to these lines, definitely lies in this first traveling adventure. In a way I think that I am lucky to have been presented with these challenges, to have made a lot of mistakes during this year and to have gone through tough times with my host family and other people over there at the time. Only that way could I develop an appreciation for the wonderful moments I was fortunate enough to spend with them. And not only that: we tend to crave for the good moments and to neglect or push away the negative moments. These are habit patterns of our minds that we have to start observing and patiently change over the years. Only by going through both negative and positive situations can this process be done. Therefore, all of my appreciation goes out to those who have been subject to these situations with me. I feel gratitude and empathy towards all of the people I had good and bad moments with today, all the people that I disappointed and hurt in some situations and vice versa.
To get to this point has been a wild journey that is still ongoing. It does not happen overnight, and it takes courage and determination to work on myself, bit by bit. My adventure in the US was a spark in my life that led to many many more traveling adventures, many of which did not bring the peace and tranquility that I was looking for. Yet, today I feel like I am closer than ever to it, thanks to this spark I made countless experiences to discover cultures, places, humans and myself.
Before I close, I want to honor the people who were part of this story. They have positively influenced my life and I want to give credit to them: Seth, Brady, Kim, Mike, Bob, Linda, Emilie, Ron, Ethan, Patty, Anna-Lu and all the other people that I have been in touch with when I lived in the US.
Want to know more about what keeps my mind spinning? Head over to (https://whereisvinz.help/category/spins/).