Meeting Friends in Foreign Places is the New Black

An exchange student complained that when they go out to the pubs in the hopes of making friends with locals, they end up meeting more exchange students. Part of the reason, they reckoned, is that with their pass/fail grading scheme they're the only group that can afford to go out almost every night of the week.

I was lucky enough to meet a great group of exchange students a couple years ago and they've left a lasting impression. Having shared so many experiences in a foreign country while knowing all along that their time together was limited, they forged these intense friendships which I couldn't help but envy. After the term ended, flight dates came up one by one, each painfully pulling another member of this closely-knit group to another point on the globe which seemed so impossibly far away. Even though I barely knew some of them, each departure left me a little emptier. I can't imagine what it was like for those with later flights as the circle became smaller and smaller.

In the months that followed, many of their friendships proved stronger than geography and they stuck together in the myriad ways that are available in our modern, connected world. They even made trips to visit each other. Sometimes I wish I had done a better job of keeping in touch but having lived here most of my life, I felt like a bit of an impostor. Now, armed with my own travel plans, I'm looking forward to reuniting with some of them and possibly seeing them in an entirely different light.