Editor in Chief- Grace LaTourelle

Hallo! Ich bin Grace und ich studiere in Freiburg im Breisgau, Deutschland. Ich liebe die Freiburger Lebensart, aber ich vermisse mein Zuhause. 

When you write about your study abroad, there’s a feeling that you should write about how big the world is. You should enumerate the countries you traveled to, describe the wonderful mountains you’ve beheld, detail all of the cappuccinos you’ve drank at outside cafes, and laudate all of the amazing people you’ve danced with on Friday nights. I should be writing about that, but that’s not the article you are about to read. 

Freiburg, Germany, is my sort of personal paradise. Situated in the foothills of the Black Forest (Schwarzwald), there are miles of hiking trails. The city lives up to its nickname as the Green City, as the public transportation infrastructure is wonderful and there are twice as many bikes on the road as cars. Most people eat vegetarian or vegan, so as a vegetarian of six years, my meals have been delicious, and I have options everywhere I go. Especially during the warmer months, people meet and picnic on the grassy banks of the river Dreisam, and the water is cool and refreshing on your skin. I love this city. 

However, studying abroad is a lonely experience. While people grouped up in my program, I fell somewhere just outside of it all. I couldn’t form the connections I expected to. I missed home, especially when texts from friends waned and became few and far between. I existed somewhere in the in-between. 

For weeks, I invited people to things, and yet none came to fruition. So I began to go alone. Every Saturday, I have picked a different trail, often over ten miles, and set out in the early morning on a hike (Long Hike Saturday, I called it). At first, I wished I had another person to share the experiences with—I was seeing so much beauty. But then, I became content, even joyful, to be out in the woods alone. In these hikes, I started to no longer hold the heaviness that loneliness bears on the soul. In its absence was a sort of peace: I was alone but not lonely. To which I realized I was not alone at all. 

As an environmental studies major, I worry about the impact people are having on the world. In so many of my classes, we’ve discussed that society seems to have forgotten that we, as humanity, are a part of Creation. And I, too, had forgotten that fact up until my long hikes. 

The truth is, even when friends no longer text to check in, the creeping and crawling insects of the world are still curious about you enough to investigate your fingers and pant legs. Cows, in their fields with their musical bells, gaze at you knowingly. Rivers and forest streams sing you songs as you pass. The wind is an excellent dance partner, waltzing around you and twirling your hair. We have forgotten that human connections are not the only connections that we experience. I realized that I had never been alone, but rather a part of something far greater. 

So in this article, I am writing to say that there’s something far more important than the expansiveness of the world. Really, it is not all that expansive when we come to understand that all humans are part of the same Creation. Instead, what’s important is the inward expansiveness of the soul and its connection to all of the other souls in the world. 

It has been difficult to experience so much joy and novelty here, knowing there’s suffering at home. I wrote the concept for this article after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. I found the things he did and said to be abhorrent, but I felt real despair at his death, just as I do with all of the children who have died due to gun violence in our country. That day, I wrote in my iPhone’s notes app: “I know the soul is expansive because I can still have love for people I hate.” 

Freiburg is one of many cities across Germany and Europe as a whole that has a food-sharing network. Across town are drop boxes where people can easily and conveniently pick up leftover bakery bread, canned goods, or produce. The admiration I have for this system, commingled with the grief I felt for those who rely on SNAP benefits being denied an essential to survival in the U.S., I wanted to be at home, supporting my community. 

So, what I am taking away from my experience here is this: firstly, I am complex—in other words, I contain multitudes. I am not fully the same person at home as here in Germany. The fragments of my soul are not a continuous line from who I was, to who I am, to who I will become, but rather a coexisting network of pieces, ebbing and flowing within me. I have contradictory emotions, experiences, and feelings welling up inside of me. Secondly, my soul is one in a mycelial network with the collective of Creation. I am a part of the forest, I am a sibling to the goats and sheep that I pass in the fields, and I am a reflection of my neighbors. 

My inward world is akin to the universe in its growth, contained within me but as infinitesimal as a spiral. I know the soul is expansive because I can hold joy in my temporary location alongside sorrow for my home; I can have tremendous love for a place I will be happy to leave; I may be lonely surrounded by people, but content and in perfect company in the woods that I so adore. 

You don’t have to study abroad to realize there is more than just your neighborhood and culture in the world. Gaze into the souls of your neighbors and know that you are different pieces and iterations of the same connection. The world is wide, but people and Creation are close, closely intertwined. Our souls are all expansive, but we really aren’t so different from each other. 

Evil is prevalent and perpetuated in our world. There is a genocide happening in Gaza. In the United States—a country built by immigrants— systemic racism, hatred, and disregard for human life by the government are hurting our people. The AfD, a German far-right party that has denied the Holocaust, is on the rise. Over 13,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since the 2022 Russian invasion. Climate change affects everyone and the whole of Creation. 

Sometimes the argument is made that you should take care of our local community before worrying about global events. But if you view your soul as part of an infinite network of expansive souls, you realize that everything is a local concern and anything that threatens Creation needs the help of all of Creation. I hope to take the ways in which I have seen German communities care for each other and Creation, and implement them at home. And in the same breath, I will continue to care for Freiburg and the communities and systems I have experienced here. 

The world is big, but we are close and inwardly expansive. Take care of one another just as you have been taken care of by those before you and around you. Study abroad, love big and wide, and have peace knowing you are part of Creation and are never alone. 

Tchüss, bis bald!