Integrating into a new community can be difficult at first. It is even more difficult when the language spoken is different from the one you are most comfortable speaking. If you are not careful, it is easy to isolate yourself or to only stay with people from your home country. Part of the experience of being abroad is stepping outside of your comfort zone to make connections to people within your community.
At first this was difficult for me. There are a total of ten girls from my home university studying here in Aix with me. This means that I arrived in France already knowing people and feeling comfortable spending time with them. The first few days, I only spent my time with two of these girls. One day, I went on a trip and neither of them were there so I branched out and met new people. Then I was finally ready to branch out even further by trying to meet French people. This was really scary in the beginning. I went to this event and it seemed like everyone was speaking fluent French, except for me! I took a deep breath and decided to introduce myself and the person I spoke with was so nice. He spoke slowly so I could understand him and he asked me to also speak in English so he could practice his skills.
