Returning to Manchester has been great, the whole transition has been surprisingly smooth – more so than I expected.
Having had an incredible year in Amsterdam, it also strangely feels as though I never left. It does feel a little odd that I could have had such a big year of growth and adventure in the Netherlands and then moved back to the UK with such ease.
I expected to have a hard time coming back and returning to Manchester as a lot of my friends have now graduated and i’m now going into the year group below. However, this isn’t the case; instead I got to move in with my best friend, and I have seen old friends and picked up where we left off. Manchester just feels like home again.
Without sounding cliché, I’d like to think that coming home has been so easy because of the life lessons and skills I learnt in the Netherlands. The year taught me how to be resilient, positive and more confident, enabling me to tackle challenges head on. And therefore, coming home was less of a challenge than I anticipated.
However, that doesn’t mean that i’m not sad that my exchange has come to an end. I miss the city, cycling around in the sunshine. I miss the beautiful buildings and sunsets. I miss the experience of living abroad. But most of all, I miss my friends.
Attempting to describe how my year abroad has been is a task which I find difficult because it has been such an interesting, exciting and happy time but also one which had its lows. It is bitter sweet that this chapter has ended and i’m now back to reality. However, all I can say is that I am very grateful that I got to have this experience and would definitely do it all again in a heartbeat.