Learning and meeting people from around the world

After an eight-hour flight, a two-hour bus ride and hauling my bag up the stairs, I was exhausted. It was one o'clock in the afternoon in England, but to me it felt like it was time for dinner. I had already gone to registration, and now I was lonely and bored.

I had decided to go to the Cambridge University Internat-ional Summer School because I wanted to learn and to meet people from around the world. But now there was not a soul to be found in my hallway.

After wandering around the gardens behind my dorm for half an hour, I went back upstairs. As I unlocked my door, I heard someone else down the hall. So I stepped back outside and that was when I met Willy.

Willy was 29 and from the Netherlands, but in spite of those differences between us, we became fast friends. And it wasn't long before we discovered that we actually had much more in common.

Not only does Willy work on a newspaper like I do, her uncle is a Princeton alum who majored in the Woodrow Wilson School, just like me. Even in the United States, I find myself having to explain my major to people I meet, so it was a big surprise to meet someone from halfway across the world who knew all about it.

At dinner that night, we met so many other people, and it was impossible to be lonely or to not have a good time for the next several weeks.

First, there was Philipp, an 18-year-old chain smoker from Germany who won everyone's heart with his jokes and his smiles. We taught each other really long words in our respective languages — antidisestablishmentarianism in English and some really long word in German that I can't remember that means a hat that the captain of a steamboat on the Danube River wears on his head.

Then there was Alberto, my friend from Spain. His English was so clear and his accent so precise that I thought he was from Britain for the first several hours. Every night Alberto would try to go to bed early to get a good night's rest, but we would always peer pressure him to go out with us and he always did.

My friend Matt was the one whom all of us admired the most. It was his poetry readings in the garden after dinner, late nights talking in the pub and his laughter that defined him.

A grad student at University of California Irvine, Matt also happened to have cerebral palsy. The reason I say it like that is because I never really noticed his disability all that much — it wasn't what he focused on.

He amazed all of us as he walked around town with us on his crutches, never complaining that he was tired even though we knew he had to be. It was we who had to convince him to take a cab home most days, telling him we would split the bill. But the reason I admire Matt most is simply because he's so much fun to be with.

The other people I met who really affected me were my friends Bob and Christa. Bob was 68 years old, and I don't think Christa ever revealed her age, but they went to pubs with all of us and ate dinner with us every night, and age never mattered in our friendship.

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It turned out that Bob went to school at Princeton in the 1950s, so we had a lot in common. We talked about which eating clubs we were in, and when he sung "Old Nassau" for me, I realized that the words have been changed since the time when there were no females here.

Christa was from Greece, which is where my grandfather comes from, so we had a lot of common culture between us. Christa was the one who spoke out whenever anything was wrong — whether it was the bathrooms not being clean enough or someone not having enough light in their room. She really cracked us up.

In my few weeks there, we had great experiences together — going out to the Eagle pub that Watson and Crick used to frequent, touring the historic colleges of the university, and going to see Shakespeare plays.

But what was even more valuable was the friendships we made, which have lasted much longer than those several weeks.

Alberto and I still e-mail each other nearly every day, and I have also been in touch with Willy, Christa, Bob and Philipp. After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, I have been really touched by the messages that flowed into my inbox from friends around the world.

Alberto loves Judy Garland, and he sent me the lyrics of a patriotic song that she sang in "Babes on Broadway." Philipp sent me an e-mail saying that he really feels for the United States and that he and all of Germany are with us.

I had decided to go to the Cambridge University International Summer School because I wanted to learn and to meet people from around the world, but I learned even more than I thought I would.