I love Columbia—I love the academics, the organizations I am involved in, my friends, my boyfriend—and so my decision to study abroad was not made without a heavy heart. When I first got to Cape Town, my initial response was to doubt that decision. I could not help comparing everything to New York. I would see beautiful mountains and beaches and think about how the New York skyline is definitely just as stunning. Going out at night, I would reflect on how safe New York is compared to Cape Town, how much better the public transportation is, how the power doesn’t go out everyday.

Don’t get me wrong though—Cape Town certainly has its luxuries, too. The club and shopping scene rival New York’s. And Woolworths, a major grocery chain, is I dare say even better—and much cheaper—than Westside Market. And so, Cape Town is rightly dubbed “the City of Contradictions.” Areas with mansions and those with shacks are often separated by only a single street, the cars on the road are most typically either brand new or breaking down, and many of the appliances designed specifically for South Africa require additional plug adaptors to fit in the wall outlets here (perhaps this last phenomenon has a reasonable explanation, but I have yet to find one, and it is something that troubles me greatly).

When it came time to register for classes, however, the comparisons were really unsettling. At Columbia, I took for granted that we register for classes, add them, drop them, and find out when and where they meet online. At the University of Cape Town, not only is all of this done in person, but requires many different forms, which each need multiple signatures, and all this must done between very specific hours to allow for a two hour lunch break and whatever other breaks the offices feel like taking throughout the day. Some fellow Columbians at UCT and I felt as though we had gone down the rabbit hole—nothing made sense, everyone gave us contradictory information, and we actually found ourselves nostalgic for Columbia’s bureaucracy.

On what was my third full day of trying to get my classes sorted out, I was commiserating with a South African student also waiting in one of many lines. He asked where I went to school, and when I responded that I went to Columbia, his expression was one of puzzlement. He commented that it was one of the best universities in the world and then asked, “Why in the bloody hell would you come here?” Even though at that moment I was asking myself the same question, I instead responded that I came because I am interested in issues of economic development and public health, which is true, but probably not quite compelling enough to move nearly 8,000 miles away.

I thought about that question a lot, though, and part of the answer is perhaps that since I do love Columbia so much, I wanted to go somewhere where I am not as comfortable, where I am challenged more outside of the classroom. It certainly has been a challenge to adjust here, but I think I am starting to surmount one of the biggest ones: I am beginning to stop comparing everything to New York and Columbia. My friends here are not my friends back home, and comparing them is just as unfair as comparing mountains and beaches to the New York City skyline.

And even though English is the most widely-spoken language here, it also took some getting used to the local vocabulary. I have had to learn that here “now” means next week, “just now” means in a few hours, and “now now” means roughly immediately. I now also know that when people respond to questions with a simple “yes,” it probably means that they actually just did not understand. Perhaps I will eventually be able to think in the native tongue and will stop having to translate everything in my head.

As I begin to appreciate Cape Town and the University in its own right, I am entertaining the thought that maybe in time I can love both cities. The secrets of any great place—weekly markets, restaurant deals, up-and-coming neighborhoods—only reveal themselves in time. Comparing has its time and is perhaps even instinctive, but while it certainly made me greatly appreciate many things about home, in the long run comparing distracts from the parts of any place that are truly unique. It is the things for which there is no comparison that make any location truly interesting. As I see other parts of Cape Town, meet more students here, and find myself increasingly comfortable, I have slowly stopped thinking of Cape Town as “not New York” and am beginning to acknowledge that it is a place all its own.

The author is a Columbia College junior majoring in economics and mathematics. This semester she is studying at the University of Cape Town.