Hello all,

73 days, that are 1,752 hours or 1,05,120 minutes. That‘s the time I (exchange student from Germany) spent already in India. It‘s just a bit more than 2 months, but it feels not like that. It feels more like a new part of my life, because there happened now already so many things, which will stay in my mind for lifetime.

Mostly the little things are are so impressive, the traffic, the monkeys or the food, for example. The common life conditions in India are as different to Germany as you can imagine. But that‘s exactly why I came here, to see a complete new culture, new religion(s) and a very different way of living. And it‘s interesting to see how fast your habit can change. In the first weeks it was still unbelievable that I am in India, now it‘s unbelievable that I go back to Germany in 7 months. But let me share some of the best experiences I made so far.

I had the big honour to celebrate Raksha Bandhan in august with my host-family and even got my own Rakhi.

Then there was a trip with my host-family to some great temples in Himachal Pradesh, where I had my first real contact with a living snake. I am still scared…

And also the PWS school trips to Haveli and Chandigarh were very impressive.

I became attached with yoga, which I perform every day with Gabrielle (exchange student from Belgium) at our yoga class with Uma Mam, the best guru we could imagine 🙂

So after this great two months in India I feel already very Indian and I am still very happy about my choice to come to a bit more special country like India.

To leave one’s comfort zone and get to know to a new family, culture and a very new view to everything is simply wonderful. I feel like a German Indian, and I am proud to be.Nationalism is great, but Internationalism is still better 😉

Thanks for reading,
Nikolai Deyhle, PWS student