EMPORIA, Kan. (AP) -- A missing Kansas college student called home Thursday nearly three weeks after traveling to Germany without telling her friends or family and setting off an international search that involved law enforcement and social media.

Emilee Irsik, a 20-year-old junior at Emporia State University, was with German authorities when she spoke to her family.

Her mother, Sherry Irsik, of La Grange, N.C., told The Associated Press she is "thrilled beyond measure" and looking forward to being reunited with her daughter.

She said her daughter was "OK" but stressed she had "zero information" about what happened because the two didn't speak long.

Emilee Irsik had been studying German at Emporia State and was interested in studying abroad. She left Oct. 19 during the school's fall break and landed the next day in Hamburg.

The trip wasn't school sanctioned, and her roommates notified the school when Irsik didn't show up for classes Oct. 22, the Monday after the four-day weekend ended. University police worked with airport and airline officials to determine her travel arrangements, including that she had booked a return trip Oct. 26. But Irsik didn't get on the flight, and her family couldn't contact her on her cellphone.

Her mother, who only spoke to the AP briefly, told The Wichita Eagle previously that her daughter had applied to three German universities and talked about taking a trip to "get the lay of the land."

Her parents talked her out of it, saying she didn't have time before fall classes began and should use that money for her education.

"Obviously, she decided it was really important to her to do this," Sherry Irsik told the newspaper.