Steps to becoming a better self

Dream of going abroad.Get the offer to volunteer in a country you know nothing about.Take the chance!Be scared of what the future holds.Desperately try to fit everything into your luggage.Be nervous about flying on your own.Be warmly welcomed at the airport.Notice you're the only one using a seatbelt in the car.Discover your new home.Struggle with the squatting toilet.Try to remember all the information, names and faces on your first day of work.Step out of your comfort zone.Speak in front of a crowd.Learn your first Armenian words.Feel cared for by your project team.Get to know your dorm mates. Have fun together and go on excursions.Be amazed that the supermarket is open 24/7.Struggle with reading the foods' ingredients.Get over your disappointment of not finding proper German bread anywhere.Get off at the wrong bus stops more than once.Forget that timetables for public transport ever existed.Learn to scream 'Gangarun gangnek!' through the whole bus.Get used to people placing their bags on your lap.Pay the driver by passing the money to other passengers.Learn the alphabet and fall in love with it.Prepare too many lessons at work.See that your students are your friends.Stop being stressed about punctuality.Notice that people invite their friends over for coffee at their workplace.Learn to make food without having the needed kitchen tools.Travel to your EVS training in Georgia.Be excited about sleeping in a 'Soviet Train'.Don't get sleep because of the border controls.Be super amazed by the training location.Enjoy the luxury of having a room for yourself, including a normal toilet and a mirror!Have training sessions at the beach.Make friends for a lifetime.Have your very first hitchhiking trip.Be invited to join the driver's family for a BBQ.Think about how most Germans would not invite strangers, especially if they don't share a common language.Visit the Garni temple on Vardavar.Love the theatre play.Hate everyone who is splashing water at you.Learn that it would've been way more fun if you'd been armed to shoot water back.Join an English teachers' party.Have a culture shock when they start discussing whether or not it's okay to slap children.Learn that the toilet is everywhere.Stop counting how many BBQs you attended.Struggle with the hot weather.Stay longer at work because of the air condition.Visit a village.Try to teach children how to swim.Almost drown yourself when they cling to you.Help the children with homework.Be asked to stay forever.Have confusing conversations through google translate.Go back to Yerevan and get sick.Spontaneusly decide to visit the OneCaucasus Festival.Hitchhike for 8hrs to Georgia.Be grateful that your favorite travel companion knows fluent Russian.Sit around a campfire all night.Be excited about speaking to Azeris, since they can never visit Armenia.Sleep in a tent for the first time.Swim in the river.Spontaneously discover Tbilisi.Feel like being back to Europe.Find a ride home.Realise the driver is driving for the very first time and doesn't have a license.Get out of the car as fast as you can.Have your brother visit you.Watch him take pictures of everything that's become normality for you.Be excited about taking him to the village.Wonder why the men drink vodka for breakfast if they are soldiers.Worry about your brother being sick after visiting the village, just like you were last time.Witness how one of your friends gets stung by a scorpion.Learn folk dances from different countries.End up having spontaneous sleepovers with your friends so many times that you have your toothbrush with you at all times.Have a big goodbye party.Cry all the way home in the plane.Don't let one day pass by without thinking of your EVS.Become a EuroPeer to share your story.Be an ambassador for Armenia for the rest of your life.Realise how many friends you have all over Europe.Visit each other.Learn from each other.Look at how much you changed since you flew away.Be endlessly grateful.