Yeah I know, sounds cheesy, but it’s true. Now it’s finally time for my blogpost about my ‘lifechanging internship’!
About two years ago, after my first year of studies, I decided that I wanted to do my mandatory internship abroad. I didn’t want to stay in my home country, because that’s what everybody does right? 😛 In the end, I decided to go to Amsterdam, because I’d already known the city.
On June 30, 2019, I left Austria for the Netherlands. I knew I wouldn’t come back for four months, so saying goodbye was pretty hard. I had to leave my family, my boyfriend and my other friends behind. And that wasn’t easy at all. But I”d decided to do that, so there was no turning back.
I started my internship, and after a few weeks I felt at home. I knew my colleagues, some better, some not that well, but most importantly, I got used to working and I really liked it. I totally enjoyed my time in Amsterdam, took lots of trips to neighbouring cities and went shopping A LOT.
Sadly, my boyfriend and I started to fight after a month in Amsterdam. Things hadn’t been right before I left Austria, but I thought things would get better. Well, as a matter of fact, they didn’t. We decided to take a break and talk again when I was back in Austria a month later for a short visit. This left me kind of devastated.
There was this one colleague though, I’ll call him Nick, that somehow knew how to cheer me up. We were working together on a project pretty closely, and after a while we started talking about personal stuff too. He was the first person to know whenever something went wrong, whether it concerned work or private life. And he always said the right things, the things that I needed to hear, and after a while I trusted him more than I trusted anybody else. So, when my boyfriend and I decided to split up a few weeks later, he was one of the first people that I told. And what he said cheered me up again.
Over the following weeks, I learned how to cope with the breakup, also because of Nick’s help, and learned how to live life on my own again. He (and some other people too 😛 but it was mostly him ^^) made me go out of my comfort zone. So, when I went back to Austria after my internship was over, I was a completely different person. It felt like I had found out who I really wanted to be. And I will forever be grateful that I got the opportunity to find that out. I guess sometimes some people are just meant to change your life. Yes, I lost a few friends and my boyfriend during my internship, but that’S life , and I also gained a lot of new friends, maybe even friends that are wayyyy better for me than the old ones were, just because I can be who I am around them. I hope I can give them back everything they’ve given me so freely and that maybe I can help them out in the future too. That’s what friends are for, right? 🙂
So, did I like my internship in Amsterdam? YES! Would I do it again? YES, any second! And who knows, maybe there are greater plans lying ahead of me….. 😉