Borders

International borders are something I’ve never really had the chance to think about before. In the US, they are few and far between, and, even with Maine being very close to Canada, I don’t think young people end up traveling that far north unless their families have motivation to do so. With a family full of homebodies, who I do in fact love dearly, I was lucky enough to ever cross the state border into New Hampshire and do some tax-free shopping. We certainly never hopped on a plane to venture into another country, with a different culture and a different language. It just wasn’t our style, as international travel isn’t a trend within many average American families...
Luckily, I figured out a way to become an un-average American. Aside from the fact that I’m living alone in Germany for a year, meeting new people, learning a new language, and all the other casual stuff that goes along with being an exchange student, I’m now getting the chance to see a bit more of Europe and Germany as well. Last week, during my winter break, I traveled to both, Switzerland and Prague in the Czech Republic. Both places had cultural, social, and lingual differences that were very interesting to experience. Traveling was such an enjoyable adventure that taught me a lot about myself and others, and, even with international borders, wasn’t difficult to do. In order to travel to Switzerland we just got on a train and rode to a station that was half on their land and half on German land. We got off, and, although it gave space in the middle for security to search for anything suspicious, no one was there and we walked through without a problem. To enter the Czech Republic, we drove by car. We simply drove along the highway and were suddenly in another country, without any sign of change other than the fact that things seemed a bit more dirty and my cell phone stopped working… 
To me, it’s comforting to know that there is a place in our society that allows people to see so many different worlds, so easily, without a complicated system or fear of what new people could bring. It’s important for people today to see how others live, and to look past the simple lives that they themselves live. Personally, I hope to see what every country has to offer me within my lifetime. And, now I completely reassured that Europe was a nice place to smoothly gather my traveling skills, and a look forward to using them within both this continent and the other six as soon as possible.