I don't even know how, but one whole year is gone. Eleven months ago I departed from Milan. With me, I had a couple of bags and just a feeling of uncertainty. I was, of course, excited, but it was different from what I experienced one year prior to that. I was not going on exchange. I was not going to live with a host family, and I wasn't going to the USA either. I landed in Denmark, that tiny & cold country above Germany.

I did not have a clue of what living in a country where the main language isn't either mine or English could be like. Of course, most of the people in Denmark know English, but sometimes I got asked questions on the streets and as soon as I said "I'm sorry, English please?" they looked at me like I was an alien and left without even saying "never-mind". I did not want to be the foreigner who was going to simply speak English just because everyone knows it and because the course is in English. I wanted to give it at least a try. "Danish language, here I come" I applied for classes, which I attended until Christmas. I used to have a lot of free time during my first semester, but then I found a job and everything relied on it. I had a flexible schedule, which meant good and bad. Good because I could go to work whenever I wanted, bad because they could call me on the day. It made it harder to schedule my life the way it was supposed to be, but I learned to deal with situations like those.

My year in Denmark has definitely been different from my exchange year in the US, but I knew all along that it wouldn't be the same because no experience will ever be comparable to my exchange. Denmark has given me an even wider view of the world.

I wrote everything you just read in July when I was back in Milan Italy. Now I am spending an academic semester (pretty much three months) in the UK as an Erasmus Student. I don't know if there have been other students like me before, but I feel like I'm unstoppable, which for some reasons is awesome, but for others, it is quite sad.

Think about it. It's always me, myself and my belongings moving around. No one ever comes and stays. One year is long enough to meet people but too short to be able to deeply fall in love and keep in touch afterward. It is possible, but very challenging and sometimes I fail to keep in touch with everyone, and this is why: whoever meets me loses me and only me, but when I leave I lose everyone, and it happens every time I go abroad, the story repeats itself.

Throughout the years I got stronger and learned that even though it is hard to say goodbye it is always worth to get out there because the things we gain in the long run are more important.

- Cris