“I didn’t like Blagoevgrad the first time”

While many AUBG students hurry to their classes grumpy and dissatisfied, consumed in daily routines, they often fail to notice and enjoy the charm of AUBG life. For an outsider, it seems to be different. Saskia Troycke thinks the AUBG campus is admirable, and finds Balkan culture, as well as chalga music, "interesting and different". Coming from a place near Munich, Saskia is in Bulgaria on a quest for an exciting cultural experience.

For two months now, Saskia has been an intern at the Neofit Rilski University, teaching German. She says it is a common practice for students in Germany to take a gap year before university. Boys are obliged to do community service or go the military, while girls usually go as Au Pair in the United States or do Work and Travel. "I have three friends who are in Australia now and one is doing an internship in New Zealand. […] It’s mostly because nobody knows what to study," Saskia says. For the same reason, after high school she completed a three-month internship in an independent news agency in Germany. She says she enjoyed writing about major events in big U.S. and European cities for the international news calendar, still, what she really craved for was an experience abroad.

But coming for the internship in Blagoevgrad wasn’t her first time. Once before, she had come to visit her boyfriend, also teaching German here. She left unimpressed. "People looked unfriendly and everything was so different. I couldn’t read anything because of the alphabet. " In the end, her jewelry was stolen from the suitcase at the airport. She never thought she would come back again.

Being here once more and getting to know the culture better, she is happy to have made such a decision. "People here are more helpful and open. I go to a restaurant with my colleague and if I say I’m not hungry, she insists and still orders [for] two. You don’t see that in Germany." However, the biggest change of track for her happened with the decision to apply to AUBG. She is now in the fuss of the SAT and TOEFL preparation, very motivated and excited about coming here as a freshman next semester.

Saskia decided to apply to AUBG for various reasons. By living across the Skaptopara residence halls, she had a glimpse of AUBG life every day. She visited the Panitza library, spoke to AUBG students, and went to the Hairspray performance. "I was positively surprised by everything. […] I always wanted to study in the US, but it’s very expensive, so I gave up. Now I realized I can have that here," she says.

Saskia would most likely be the only full-time German student here, a fact she finds thrilling. "I like that there are not many Germans here. I like to experience the presence of different nationalities among AUBG students,"she says. An adventurous person, Saskia has many interesting stories behind. Once she hitchhiked with a friend from Munich to Paris, another time she explored New York City on her own.

If she enrolls at AUBG, Saskia has many ideas in mind. She plans to travel around, to visit Georgia, Romania and Ukraine. Mostly she looks forward to meeting many of the AUBG students. Some of her friends at home won’t be clear where Bulgaria is, she says, but she knows she wants to be here. "And I would definitely learn Bulgarian"- she adds.