One of the first things many international students discover when moving abroad is that making friends with other international students is surprisingly easy. You arrive in a new country knowing very little about the place, and suddenly you meet people who are going through exactly the same thing. They are also trying to understand the language, figure out public transport, discover the city, deal with university and build a new life from scratch. There is an immediate sense of familiarity. You don’t need to explain what it feels like to be new because they already know. This naturally creates communities. International student residences are a perfect example. People from different countries can end up living in the same building, sharing kitchens, common areas, conversations and evenings together. Very quickly, the residence can become its own little world. You might know people from France, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Poland, Morocco or somewhere else, while barely knowing anyone from the neighborhood outside. In a way, you have moved to another country but created a small international version of home around yourself.
I experienced this myself when I first arrived in Portugal. During my first months, many of the people I became close to were international students and young workers living around me. It made those first months much easier. We were all discovering Lisbon at roughly the same time, so there was always someone to explore with, ask questions to or simply share the experience with. For someone arriving alone in a foreign country, that kind of environment can be incredibly valuable.
But there is something strange about constantly meeting people who are temporary.
International communities can be full of people who are only staying for a semester, a year or a few years. You become close to someone, create routines together, and then suddenly they leave. They return home, move to another country, finish their studies or simply continue somewhere else. Then another person arrives and the cycle starts again.
After a while, you can become very good at making friends with people who are passing through.
And this is where the international student bubble becomes interesting. You can have a large social circle, meet people from all over the world, attend international events every week and still not necessarily feel integrated into the country where you live. Having international friends and being integrated are not quite the same thing.
Meeting locals can actually be harder than people expect. International students often have an immediate reason to connect with each other: everyone is new, everyone is curious and everyone is looking for people. Locals, on the other hand, may already have established friendships from school, university or their hometown. They don’t necessarily have the same need to actively search for new people. There can also be language barriers, cultural differences or simply different routines. As an international student, it is therefore very easy to remain within your own bubble without deliberately choosing to do so. You go to an international residence, make international friends, attend international events and speak English most of the time. You can spend weeks surrounded by people from everywhere except the country you actually moved to.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this. In fact, I think the international bubble can be one of the best parts of studying abroad. It exposes you to cultures you might never have encountered otherwise. You hear different languages, discover different traditions, compare perspectives and make friendships that can take you to places you never expected to visit. There is something special about sitting around a table with people from several different countries and realizing how differently everyone understands the world.
But at the same time, I think it can become limiting if you never step outside it.
For me, one way of stepping outside that bubble was simply becoming curious about everyday Portuguese life. I started paying more attention to what was happening around me rather than experiencing Portugal mainly through other international students. I would explore different neighborhoods, attend local events, spend time in cafés and public spaces, follow local activities and observe how people lived their everyday lives. The more I did this, the more Portugal stopped feeling like just the country where I studied and started feeling like a place where I was actually living.
Those experiences gradually gave me a different relationship with Portugal. I was no longer experiencing the country only through the eyes of another international student. I started discovering more of the everyday environment around me and meeting people who had their own history and relationship with the country.
I don’t think the goal should be to completely escape the international bubble. After all, most of the valuable relationships I have made in Portugal came from it. The people who arrive from somewhere else often understand a particular side of living abroad that locals simply don’t experience in the same way.The problem is not being part of the bubble. The problem is believing that the bubble is the entire country.
Living abroad is not only about living somewhere geographically different. It is also about trying to understand the society around you, even when doing so takes more effort. It means occasionally leaving the comfortable circle of people who understand exactly what you’re going through and allowing yourself to interact with people whose experiences are completely different from yours. Perhaps the best international experience is therefore not one where you choose between international and local communities, but one where you have both. A little bit of the world around you, and a little bit of the country beneath your feet.