What is it like being best friends with international students?

If university has taught me one thing recently it is that I was terribly naive in my expectations of the people I would meet and become friends with. It is the people I have not shared similar life experiences with which I am now creating new memories. In fact two of my closest friends in Edinburgh didn't grow up in Britain, looked beyond the borders of the UK for education and have lived in ways I had only seen on films. Crazy right?





 Well it is for me sometimes anyway, because I am used to my friends meeting up in the park when you were 12 and how going to Leeds was a fairly special day out because it actually had more shops and you didn't bump into someone from college every five minutes. My social life had been fairly simple, monotonous yet enjoyable and involved very little spontaneous travel.
Now it might sound like my life was a bore, that I didn't enjoy it. Quite the contrary is true, I loved growing up in Yorkshire and my social life was always the way I wanted it. Yes, there are places I have dreamed of seeing, activities I might never do, but I do not regret going out every Wednesday and working in a pub every weekend.

University has merely made me realise how diverse friendships can be, how far apart you could live but that sometimes these are the people you end up spending your life with. They open you up to culture and food and opportunities that are pretty damn exciting. I can spend a night with my university friends and feel like I've learned about a whole new life I want to live.
I must admit, I am rather excited to spend the next few years getting the opportunity to travel the world, stop wishing I could do things and actually do them. Wouldn't you be excited to go to Malaysia one day? I know I am...and when I do I can't wait to share it.

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