When I came to Urbana-Champaign to spend a semester abroad here, I did not have a clue what I could expect from this experience. I had a quite optimistic attitude, but I felt a little bit lost at the beginning, because I came here all by myself and did not know anybody. At the ISSS office we, the exchange students, were told, that there is a place called “The Cosmopolitan Club”. They offer free food and coffee every Thursday evening, so we should go there. “Free food”—that sounded quite convincing to me. It turned out that this should become a jour fix for me, as this place is not just a very good option to fill one’s stomach but also a great platform to meet a lot of people from all over the world.
The evenings hosted by different countries are opportunities to broaden one’s horizon, acquire knowledge about various countries and practice cultural plurality. On the first evening I was surprised by the warm and welcoming atmosphere. The idea of people from all over the world living together was something that I liked from the very beginning.
The Cosmopolitan Club offers not just the opportunity to fill in gaps in geography and lifestyle and to become tolerant and aware of different perspectives, but it also helps recognizing the similarities among us all. In my eyes we have much more in common than we are different from each other, no matter where we came from. Nevertheless, the differences are very interesting–especially when it comes to food!
My mind and my stomach have been traveling to Tanzania, Congo, Turkey, Japan, Greece, Sweden, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Poland, Argentina, and Germany so far. I noticed that my favorite Austrian dish in my childhood–Palatschinken–is actually not limited to Austria. I already knew the French “crepes” version, and the American “pancake” version, but I had no idea that these dishes are very well known in Sweden, Poland, and Argentina. The Argentinean version filled with caramel cream was my personal highlight.
This initiative shows that cultural communication is not just possible, it is indeed enriching for everybody. After all, what is culture? Culture is “a network of knowledge shared among a collection of interconnected individuals.” According to this definition, we created a “cosmo culture” as we all got connected through the Cosmo Club. When we do not just talk about tolerance, humanity, and peace, but really experience it, practice it, and integrate it in our own life, then there is hope that this will also get through to politicians and decisionmakers–someday, sometime. To be able to change the world, we must start at changing ourselves as Gandhi said. On this note, let’s leave footprints of tolerance, sympathy, and peace.
Isabella Knoll, shown in the middle between Felix Autenrieth and Regina Klotz, is organizer of the Austrian coffee hour and fully immersed in her international experience at Cosmo.