I was at a flea market in Hamburg, Germany. I spoke almost no German, just “thank you,” “please,” “water,” and a few random words I’d picked up here and there. Wandering through rows of colorful and vintage-like stalls, I stopped at one run by a young woman selling these beautiful flower hair clips. When I approached her, it became clear very quickly that she didn’t speak German or English (a first for me).
We both giggled as we tried to communicate, pointing at clips and signs, smiling through the confusion. Eventually, she handed me two clips for three euros. Later, a friend told me she was charging three euros each, so our language barrier must have turned into a bargain. It was my first time haggling, without meaning to, and I still feel a little guilty about it…
But I also remember that moment for something else: standing there, in the middle of a busy flea market, realizing how small I felt, and wondering if she ever felt that way too.
Blame It on Sabrina
Studying abroad was something I’d always dreamed of doing. When I was little, I remember watching the 1995 version of Sabrina with Julia Ormond and Harrison Ford. I instantly fell in love with it, not because of the romance (well, definitely the romance), but because of the dreamy idea of finding yourself abroad.
“I sat in a cafe, I drank coffee, and I wrote nonsense in a journal. And then, somehow, it was not nonsense. I went for long walks… and I met myself in Paris.”
Pollack’s Sabrina, 1995
That line stuck with me. It made me want to travel, to sit in cafes, write in journals, and feel the kind of quiet transformation that only seems to happen in movies. At first, I dreamed of Paris, but as I got older, I started picturing other places too, inspired by the romantic films that filled my childhood.
When I started at KU, those dreams began to feel like something real. But when it came time to filling out paperwork and booking plane tickets, I started to chicken out. My parents, who never had the chance to study abroad themselves, were thrilled for me and gently pushed me to go through with it, and I’m so grateful they did.
I got my first choice: Germany! From there, it was a deep dive into researching everything like fashion, weather, culture, Berlin slang, and all the little details that made the trip feel both thrilling and terrifyingly real.
Flea Markets and Prada Stores
Before leaving for Germany, I had this idea that studying abroad would be just like the movies. I imagined myself sipping coffee in chic cafes, making lifelong friends, and having moments of poetic transformations like Sabrina or even The Summer I Turned Pretty, when Belly wanders through Paris and everything looks like a dream sequence. Spoiler: it wasn’t exactly like that.
I did drink coffee in cafes, but usually alone. I wandered through art museums and vintage stores, ate pastries along busy and quiet streets, and got on so many wrong buses. But somewhere between the confusion and the calm, I started to enjoy it, being by myself. There was something freeing about not having to share every experience or fill every silence. I realized I didn’t need to be surrounded by people to feel fulfilled. I could be my own company and still feel whole.
That’s not to say it was all perfect. I had moments of loneliness and self-doubt, wondering why I wasn’t making the deep, movie-worthy friendships everyone talks about. But then I met Maya. She was another student on the trip who, like me, didn’t quite fit into the main group dynamic. We’d sneak away from the planned activities to explore on our own, finding thrift stores, hole-in-the-wall bakeries, and random parks we saw on Google Maps. And surprisingly, a lot of bubble tea. It wasn’t a cinematic montage of best friends laughing through Europe, but it was real. And that realness made it better.
Then there was Chloe, a fellow Midwesterner who shared my sense of humor and my curiosity for random adventures. One afternoon, I convinced her to go into a Prada store with me, purely so I could say I’d done it in Europe. We tried our best not to giggle as one of the store clerks followed us closely, probably because of our dirty walking shoes and huge bags. When I finally asked how much a small purse cost, the woman replied (very seriously too) that it was over a thousand euros. Chloe and I barely made it out the door before bursting into laughter. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was one of those moments that made me feel so full of life.
Through moments like those, the quiet independence, the genuine friendships, and the unexpected laughter, I started to realize that the “study abroad glow-up” isn’t about changing who you are. It’s about discovering all the versions of yourself that were already there, waiting to be noticed.
Meeting Myself Abroad
Before my trip, I thought a “glow-up” meant coming back with a new wardrobe and a camera roll of scenic photos. But my real glow-up wasn’t aesthetic at all, it was internal. Although I did come back with some amazing photos and clothes…
I learned to be okay with uncertainty, to laugh when things went wrong, and to enjoy my own company in ways I never had before. I stopped needing every experience to be perfect or picture-worthy. Sometimes, the most meaningful moments are the ones that no one else sees, like journaling in a cafe, or navigating a train system that’s nearly impossible to understand, or sharing quiet laughter with friends who are also just trying to figure it all out.
Two months came and went, and I came home. I didn’t feel like a completely different person. Instead, I felt like I’d met a version of myself that had been quietly waiting underneath the noise of routine, someone a little braver, a little more patient, and a lot more at peace with being in progress.
Reinvention doesn’t always need a passport. But sometimes, putting a little distance between who you’ve been and who you’re becoming helps you see yourself more clearly.
“Paris is always a good idea.”
Pollack’s Sabrina, 1995