This week, the international students who will study at my university this academic year have arrived. It is always a week full of nerves and stress but also of great excitement. It is the first day of the rest of their lives. Their lives are going to change forever. When they return home, everything will remain the same, but they will be different, totally transformed.

After many years of international experiences, cultural clashes, misunderstandings, nostalgia, and the occasional tear, I allow myself to give some advice to anyone about to embark on an international experience: don’t be just another tourist.

You are not a tourist; you are not there to tour the city, eat the typical food, take a photo, and return home the same as you left. When you are at your destination to live, you have to play by the rules of your host country, so the sooner you accept it, the better.

Give yourself a week for cultural shock, to think “everything is so different, everything is so strange, everything is so difficult…” But don’t let those thoughts block or overwhelm you. You came for this, didn’t you? No one said it would be easy. If you wanted to do the same things you do at home, you should have stayed at home. If you didn’t want problems, challenges, or complications, this is not for you.

You have to forget about your language, your music, your food, and your schedules. Now play the game that for a few months or a year, you are going to be French, Italian, German, or whatever you have to be. As always, the wise saying gives us good advice: when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

You will have time to return to your nationality, your schedules, your customs and your food when you return home. You have the rest of your life to be who you are, and only for a few months can you play this game.

I won’t lie: it is a difficult and tough game. Sometimes you need to feel something familiar, eat something that smells like home, talk to someone in your language, a video call with your close circle, of course. In any game, you have to stop from time to time and rest and then go back to the field. Here it is the same.

The first test of the game is to make a friend at your destination. Most likely, it will be someone who is just like you, just as lost, who arrived at the same time as you and who also does not speak the language well or know where things are.

There is a certain peace in meeting someone who is just like you, who plays the game with you, who mispronounces names, who does not have the right clothes for the season, who has run out of data on their phone or who lives in a flat too far away because they couldn’t find anything better.

The next test is to make a local friend. This gets complicated. Local people are not always willing to make friends with “tourists.” You have to make a big effort to find them: look for a flat with locals and be accepted as an outsider, sign up for local activities or practice sports with them, talk to them in cafes, classes, or parties, any encounter is good.

The language is often the barrier and the most difficult test. Learning what is necessary to talk to taxi drivers and waiters is usually easy. But from there to having long and deep conversations, using the language in work or study environments, and expressing your ideas in a way that is understood, there is a long way to go. It is usually the hardest stretch to walk.

The most subtle but perhaps the most complex test is culture. At first, they are funny anecdotes (how to greet, one kiss, two, a handshake, a bow?), but over time it becomes something deeper: understanding taboos, what is appropriate to say in public or not, what should never be asked, the facial expressions of each culture, body language, music, flavors, the way of understanding leisure, friendships, love, or family relationships…

Over time, the game stops being difficult and becomes second nature. You know the bus stops by heart, you don’t need Google Maps to get where you want to go, you already know which foods you don’t like and avoid them, you have found out which bars have the cheapest drinks, you have a group of friends who feel like family, and your pronunciation has improved by leaps and bounds.

When you realize it, the experience is over. You return home with a heart full of contradictions, eager to see your family and friends but aware that what you have lived can never be repeated. The experience ends, and no one assures you that you will return to that city, to that country. You have promised to see those friends again, maybe in a couple of months, but nothing will be the same. You can no longer return to that life, and you know you will miss it.

The game is over. Enjoy it while it lasts. There won’t be another like it.

(The pic is me in Canada surrounded by snow, totally out of my comfort zone)