My first “aha” moment of my trip, where it really sunk in to me that I was in a different country, came VERY early on in the trip. I felt this sense of being in another country as soon as I stepped off the plane and into the Bucharest Henri Coandǎ International Airport. As soon as we walked off the runway and into the terminal, it immediately smelled like old cigarettes. Inside. I thought, Well, you don’t smell that everyday in an airport in the US. A lingering cigarette smell would prove to be a hallmark of our time in Europe. Besides the smell, the Bucharest airport was very reminiscent of the communist period; utilitarian, lots of cement, small and dark hallways, and with a money exchange counter run by an older woman who spoke no English.

As we left the airport in an Uber, it was immediately clear to me that we had left the US, and more broadly, the West. Driving from the airport to the hotel in Bucharest city center, we passed countless communist bloc apartment buildings, advertisements for Romanian brands, and European cars on the roads (think Dacias and Skodas). Our Uber driver again spoke no English, had multiple photos of a decked-out-in-gold Jesus pinned to his sun visor, and was listening to Romanian pop music on the radio. This visual representation of religion in the Uber was an early indicator of the widespread nature of Romanian Orthodoxy in Romania.

Coming off over 24 hours without sleep during my two travel days, I was a little overwhelmed by how new everything felt at once. I realized during this Uber ride that I knew the three girls from my program I was sharing an Uber with, my professor, and the nine others who would be arriving in Bucharest that day from my program, but no one else in the entire country. For the first thirty minutes or so I was alone in my hotel room after checking in, this feeling of being away from my home country and in a completely new setting was quite jarring for me. However, having these thoughts forced me to get real with myself and think about the attitude I wanted to approach my program with. Did I want to constantly be thinking about how far I was from home, or did I want to push those thoughts aside and take everything that came towards me during my trip in stride? Obviously, I chose the second option. I am almost grateful to my sense of disorientation right at the beginning of the trip, because it allowed me to check in with myself and align my priorities to have the best time possible.