Week 8

   As my last week is about to begin I cannot help but reflect about the wonderful time I have had here in Erfurt. To be honest I was very hesitant about how much I would actually enjoy this trip mainly due to the fact that i had to make new friends with complete strangers. Nobody likes being put in a situation where they have to spend a summer with people they just met that same day, but of course I was wrong and the wonderful people I have met on this trip from other schools have been nothing short of welcoming. From the second I got off the plane we all seemed to click ( the WVU students), we all had this same mindset of wanting to travel and we wanted to go to the same places for the most part so it immediately gave us a great ice breaker. After a few days passed it seemed like the WVU students would do everything together, which we did, the Texas students did everything in their own group and of course the OU students did the same thing. Once we all started getting comfortable with our own group from our school we started getting to know the other students more. It was definitely awkward at first because it seemed that the OU and Texas students seem to get along more and have more in common with each other, I believe this is because of the proximity of the two schools. Then during a weekend festival early on in the summer we all decided to go out together as one big group, and after that night everyone seemed to be getting along great, sometimes you just need a certain setting to bring out the fun in people and let people step out of their comfort zone. Now I definitely have developed stronger friendships then others on this trip and the friendship I am talking about is the one with the wonderful Taylor Pitre. When I first got off the plane I was extremely tired when we were waiting in that McDonald's, and all I remember is hearing Taylor talking non stop very loudly about where she wanted to travel and I was very annoyed but a lot of that was because I was very tired. Nevertheless I will say I did not think I would have become such good friends with her, it was the classic case of judging a book by its cover. Now in the Textbook it describes a process of friendship development and we definitely went through most of those steps. The first step we went through was " Role limited interaction" in that stage we only interact when it is socially polite which we did we would only talk if it was saying hello and goodbye for the most part not much interaction after that. (Rawlins 1992). The second phase we went through was the " friendly relations" phase and that is when we developed more personal knowledge of each other (Rawlins 1992), a example of this is when we both found out that we have many mutual friends at WVU but yet never once interacted with each other. That blew my mind that not a single time we met even with all the mutual friends we have and how close we were with those friends. The third phase we went through and are currently in is " Stabilized Friendship" in this phase we are at maximum closeness and we have no filter when talking to each other about any topic big or small, a example of us in this phase is how now we walk around Erfurt or wherever we are traveling and have inside jokes that we tell each other and makes us constantly laugh throughout the day. Also with Taylor being older and have graduated there have been numerous times where we have been hanging out and I just pick her brain about life after college, jobs or even the communication department itself. These talks with her have really helped me mature and have brought me great confidence that I will have a prosperous future. The friendship that we have made is one that I hope to maintain for the rest of my life because of how great of a person she is and all the things I have learned just by being around her, and how glad I am about how wrong I was about what she was going to be like. I actually beat myself up about it because it was a terrible thing to judge someone before I even met them. But dont let my strong relationship with Taylor take away from the other friends I have made on this trip especially the ones from WVU, they are all my good friend and I plan on staying in contact with every single one , no matter if they have graduated or not , every single person I have met has had a positive impact on my life that I wouldn't change for the world. I am sad to see my time in Erfurt come to a end but I am going to have a blast spending my last few days with these wonderful people because I am sure we will go out on a very high note and make a memory that I will cherish forever!

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