Introvert Abroad
Pushing Myself to Experience the World
10/30/2018 0 Comments Midway Point and Getting Out ThereSo, things have been this mix of awesome and not so awesome. The homesickness and culture shock was so real for the first 3 or so weeks of this semester for me, but after that, I was truly thriving. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to be in Florence, to be waking up every morning with the chance to walk around and travel and see all of the beautiful things I was seeing, meet all of the interesting people I was meeting, do all of the amazing things that I was doing. It was incredible. I was having a great time traveling, learning, and experiencing everything. But then one night, I took a phone call and caught up with a friend from home. I knew that homesickness was a thing. I’d already experienced that intense desire to just hop on a plane and quit the whole semester. It still comes and goes sometimes, but for the most part, it’s so much easier to handle. At this midpoint of the semester I was hit with a realization that hadn’t fully gotten through to me until now. Not only was I changing while abroad, but my home was changing too. Catching up with my friend from Clemson made me realize that things at my home school were changing, my friends’ relationships with each other were developing, new people were being introduced to my social circle, and things were just overall becoming different. I wasn’t there for any of it, and when I get back, my home will be different. This idea of feeling like an outsider looking in to my home and my Clemson social circle was honestly really sad. The next few days were a little rough, what with midterms and thinking about missing out on what was happening. So, I decided that now would be a good time to reflect on the semester so far and write a list of all of the great things that are possible to achieve while abroad. 1. Travel I’ve already talked about this a decent amount, but getting the chance to travel to so many new places because of their vicinity and the cheaper transportation available in Europe is something that I’ll never stop being thankful for. Do you know how expensive it is to get to another country from the United States? Sure, road trips across state lines are cool, but it’s not an entirely new culture that you’re experiencing. It’s not new traditions, language, fashion, food, etc. etc. that you’re experiencing. Before studying abroad, I had been to one other country before. I went to Guatemala to visit some family, and those were some pretty expensive plane tickets, so I only went twice in my lifetime. Since coming abroad, I’ve been to four different countries in Europe, and I have plans to visit at least three more before the end of the semester. That’s crazy. That’s so wild that I get to say that I did that. And on a student budget too! 2. Meeting People Study abroad is the most “choose your own adventure game” that you can play. Depending on how you do things, you could meet a lot of interesting people from all over. Don’t forget to stay safe and be smart while abroad, but remember to not be afraid to talk to new people. Try to get involved in activities that aren’t just for study abroad students who speak English. One thing that I signed up for was an external internship as a class. As a student of the performing arts, I got placed as a front of house assistant for Opera at St. Mark’s, an opera company that stages shortened operas and concerts at St Mark’s Anglican Church. Most of the people who come to see the opera are native English speakers, but there are also plenty who aren’t. The people who run the opera are Ilse and Franz Moser, an Austrian couple who can speak German, English, Italian, and French. The opera singers who work with the company are also from all over. Many of them speak English, so they’ve had some pretty pleasant conversations with me before, and they’re happy to help me practice my Italian on them. Not only that, but I’ve met so many South American opera singers who I can speak Spanish with. I’ll be honest, I’ve never spoken as much Spanish in the US as I have here in Italy. All of these people that I’ve met have had such different life experiences based on their variety of cultures and also just because they’re cool people. I would highly suggest joining a club or starting to volunteer in the local community just for the chance to meet people that you’d never meet if you just went to class and only interacted with other American students. The random people that you meet while traveling are also super cool. At Oktoberfest, I met way more people who were traveling from all over than study abroad students, which is so great! It’s so cool to talk to a nomad from New Zealand who trains sled dogs in the winters, or a group of friends from Sweden who’ve been traveling for months, or a Turkish guy who finished his Erasmus and is trying to find meaning in life through backpacking the world, or a Scottish lord who’s a freelance journalist. These are all people that I’ve actually met! And it’s so! cool!!!! 3. New friendships. Another thing that I joined was a program with FUA called ChatPal, and I’m honestly so glad that I did. I have a new, Italian friend named Carlotta who is so nice and fun. We text, hang out, and most importantly, we help each other with our English and Italian. Studying Italian in school is one thing, but actually talking to a native speaker who’s there to say “Uh, yeah that’s technically correct, but you’ll probably never hear someone say that. You should try saying it like this” or just fun things like Italian sayings that you’d never get from a textbook. Plus, she shows me things around Florence that I’d probably never find or learn on my own. And the whole “new friendships” thing isn’t exclusive to Europeans. The other study abroad students that I’ve met here are the best! I feel like I’ve already gotten close to my new friends, and we’ve shared some awesome experiences while abroad that I would have been too afraid to do alone. Going on hikes in Switzerland with my new friends were some of the coolest experiences ever. I don’t even go on hikes at home, but I somehow hiked up a mountain in Switzerland for four hours and got to see incredible views with incredible people by my side. I’m honestly not the adventurous type at home, but I somehow got the courage to go hang gliding over Interlaken with two other friends. And it’s not just travel that brings people together. My roommates are actually the best ever. They’re both studio arts majors from different schools, and I love getting to share a home with these girls. I love coming home to them and telling them about my day and hearing about theirs and making plans for dinner or just hanging out at the kitchen table and drinking wine together. I’ve only been in Italy for not even two months, but I can confidently say that I love the people that I’ve met here, and I’m so glad they’re my friends. 4. A break The college experience is different for everyone. I’m personally thankful that the theatre department at Clemson is a tight knit group of people who I consider a second family to me. I know everyone in the theatre dept. They’re all people that I’m proud of and artists that I’m excited to work with one day when we’re all out in the field together. It was so hard to leave them, but now that I’m removed from that environment, I can see that a break from it was one of the healthiest things that I could have done for myself. I love love love, Clemson and my friends there, but I didn’t realize that I literally only associated with people who were just like me. I had maybe four friends who weren’t theatre majors. And even then, they were all artists in different fields. I don’t really hang out with people who enjoy accounting, business, agriculture, or I don’t know, literally anything that isn’t art. I’d always thought of myself as a pretty open-minded person, but I didn’t realize how closed off I’d been living my life so far. It’s so good to get out there, so see new things, and to just live life to be happy for once. I know so many people who spend their lives in college not eating or sleeping just to make time for getting work done or studying. We have the rest of our lives to work. Why kill yourself overworking when you could be doing things that make you really really happy? We don’t have to prove ourselves to anyone. We’re all good enough, and we all deserve to live happy, healthy lives. I’m so glad that I got to meet people here who truly live by that mentality and that I got to experience a semester where your professors expect you to go out, travel, and have fun. This blog post might have been a weird mixture of homesickness and reflection, but I feel like I really needed to write these kinds of thoughts down. Talking through things like this with one of my roommates also helped, and she even said “Even though our situations are pretty different, you’re saying so many things that I’m also feeling.” So maybe you aren’t a costume design major at Clemson University who misses her friends, but you might be a study abroad student who’s seeing things that they never imagined they would. You might be a young adult who still feels like an unsure kid, afraid to go out and live in the real world. You might just be a person who’s scared of change or putting themselves out there. I just want to say, so am I. But I’m changing, my friends are changing, my home is changing, and that’s ok. It’s more than ok, actually. It’s fantastic. So maybe if you’re feeling a bit down, you can write your own list to remind yourself that it’s more than ok. These are my things. These are the people that I’m glad I got to meet. These are the reasons that I don’t regret coming abroad. These are the memories that I’ll remember forever.
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10/9/2018 0 Comments The Beauty of the DaytripStudying abroad can be overwhelming. I’ve said it a million times, and I’ll probably say it a million more. There are a ton of things to worry about. There’s paperwork, language barriers, new classes, and tip planning. As someone who doesn’t regularly plan trips in the US, I have to say, trip planning is actually the most stressful thing ever. You have to figure out who wants to go, when it works with everyone’s schedule, what everyone’s price range is, which things everyone wants to do/see, transportation, accommodation, food, etc. etc. It can take hours to do good research, planning, and price comparisons. In the end, it’s almost always worth it for bigger trips. Personally, I think that one of the most stressful parts of this already stressful experience is deciding where to go. There are a million things to see in the world, and it’s so much easier when you’re already in Europe. Everyone works on limited time and money though. Your calendar starts to fill up, your bank account starts to empty, and you start running out of time for things like, y’know, homework. It’s so hard to prioritize when you want to see and do EVERYTHING. In the face of all of these decisions to make, I’ve found comfort in the daytrip. Daytrips are a quick and easy way to experience Italy without so much commitment. Not only do they take way less time to plan, but they also just last so much shorter. I know it’s the best when you get to take a long trip and really explore a cool, new place. But sometimes, you just want to take a 1-3 hour train ride to a nearby town and go home to your apartment by the end of the night. It’s less exhausting, and you get the chance to explore smaller towns that maybe aren’t huge tourist hubs. So this weekend, I went on some daytrips. I don’t have class on Thursday, so I planned a last minute trip to Verona with my friend, Danika. Planning was pretty easy. I just stopped by her apartment for maybe 30 minutes on the day before we wanted to go. We looked at some trains together, bought a ticket, and decided on a time to meet at the station the next morning. Easy. Verona was described to me as a small, romantic town. After spending about 6 hours there, I have to agree. It was so picturesque in the cutest way. There were many small parks and fountains around. The only tourist-y part of the whole town was Juliet’s balcony. Everything else was pretty mellow. A good amount of people around on a Thursday afternoon, not too crazy, not too empty. The color scheme of the buildings was a nice pastel, coral-y wash with some yellows and greens speckled in there. There were a few bridges crossing this beautiful river. The weather was nice, the town was cute, how could it get better? Danika and I must have complimented the city at least 50 times that day. We would just walk down the street, look up at the buildings and go “Oh my god, I love Verona.” This may not be the best way to see a city, but we actually did zero research beforehand. We had just heard good things about Verona, and I’d decided that I wanted to see Juliet’s balcony while I was in Italy. Once we got there, Danika found a map of a tour of Verona that you could purchase. Although we didn’t go on the official tour, we took a picture of the map and just walked to all of the spots on our own. Sure, we didn’t get all of the historical information or fun stories from a professional tour guide, but getting to see things on your own and appreciating how they look was worth it to us. We just barely had about 6 hours to spend in Verona, and we wanted to do it on our own terms. One of the best parts of the trip was finding the Castel San Pietro after walking across one of the bridges. We hiked all the way up and saw a beautiful view of the whole city. We probably spent a good 30 minutes just sitting at the top and staring at the city below us. Definitely romantic. Got some good marriage proposal vibes there. Might go back and try that someday. The other daytrip I went on this past weekend was actually a two-parter. I went with my friend Madison to Pisa and Lucca on Saturday. There are some things you gotta do when you’re studying abroad in Florence. One of those is to go see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I knew I was going to do this at some point, it was really just a matter of when. The train ride is just an hour, and it was like 10 bucks. Such low commitment for a nice trip! A lot of things that I know about other towns in Europe are purely from word of mouth. I heard from a couple of people that there really wasn’t anything else to see in Pisa except the area around the tower. Keeping that in mind, we decided to book a second train and spend the majority of our Saturday in the nearby town of Lucca. I heard even better things about Lucca than I did about Verona. Everyone said it was such a cute and nice town. Someone even told me that Lucca was their favorite town in Italy. So we carved out about 3 hours in Pisa and 5 hours in Lucca for the day. Even with that full day, our train ticket to Florence would get us back to our apartments by 8:30 pm. Amazing. So to Pisa it was! It’s true, there really isn’t much except the area around the tower. It was truly surreal to see the tower in real life. It’s such a pop culture icon that you see parodied or mentioned everywhere. I even remember some cartoons using it was a joke when I was a kid. I never imagined that I would actually be there. In Italy. Next to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Like, it was right there. It really reminded me of how lucky I was to be able to study abroad and see the things that I’m seeing. The outside is a little less ornate than I imagined it would be, but it looks very nice with its simple and clean exterior. The Piazza del Duomo or otherwise known as the Square of Miracles in Pisa was really beautiful. The cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta was large and intricately decorated on its exterior. The same, but on a smaller and more simple scale could be said about the baptistery. After staring at these miraculous pieces of architecture, we got some lunch at a cute osteria and hopped on our train to Lucca. Although it was a pretty rainy day, Lucca was still, indeed, adorable. The town of so many churches, Lucca was really great to walk through. It was hard to see the whole town in 5 hours and really appreciate it, but we took our time to really soak everything in and I feel like we did a nice job. The churches were beautiful, even the simpler ones. I feel like I should say more about Lucca, but it was such a mellow and nice time walking through and appreciating the way that everything looked. I feel like I can really only give the description that was given to me before: Lucca is such a cute and nice town. I already have my big, international trips planned for the semester, so I can definitely see some spontaneous daytrips on the horizon for me. There are more towns to see in Italy, and even some that I wouldn’t mind returning to. I want to keep taking advantage of the train prices and convenience while I’m still in Italy. It really is a more relaxing way of life to just take some time to see something new and take it all in. Maybe I’ll take this spontaneity and appreciation of small towns with me to the US. 10/2/2018 38 Comments A Weekend in FlorenceThis has been said over and over again, but I’ll say it again: one of the best parts of studying abroad is the opportunity to travel. Getting together with new friends and planning a trip to a different country or a different part of Italy for every weekend of the semester is definitely a regular occurrence. My calendar is quickly filling up, and my bank account is quickly emptying. Planning some stay at home weekends is not only a good way to save money, but a great way to carve out time to explore the city of Florence more fully. So here we are, about three weeks into the semester, and I spent my first full weekend in Florence! To be honest, this was more of a rest weekend for me. I recently got sick, so I wanted to take a chill weekend to fully recover. Since I knew that I was spending some time in the city, I wanted to look for really local things to do. Protip: there are ALWAYS events going on in Florence. You can definitely find things going on through the free newsletters that they have around FUA and the SAI office. I look through The Florentine, Florence is You!, and Florence News all the time to find things that are happening that week to see if I might be able to fit it into my schedule. The best part about these newsletters is that they all have websites too. There’s always a variety of bigger events and smaller, more local things going on, so there’s something for everybody! One of the things that really sounded interesting to me was a vintage clothes and beer festival nearby. Always a sucker for vintage clothes, I decided it’d be cool to try to go to a smaller, more local deal. And this wasn’t going to be in the city center either. It was located at a courtyard by a nearby arena called the Visarno Arena. The arena was about 2-3 kilometers from the city center. My options were walking for a really long time, or taking public transportation. So Saturday was the day that I had to figure out how to use the city bus for the first time. First of all, the bus was super easy to figure out. You just go to your local tobacco shop (you’ll see the signs that say tabacchi) and ask for a ticket on the ataf (the name of the bus/tram company). A ticket lasts you for a 90-minute trip, and it’s only € 1.50. All of the bus lines are easily available online, and there are usually signs on every bus stop with the routes printed on them. So I grabbed a friend, hopped on the C3 line towards the nearest stop to the Visarno Arena: Stazione Leopolda. As a girl who grew up in the suburbs of Southeastern United States, I’m not the most familiar with public transportation. I’m really just used to being able to drive everywhere on long roads with lots of trees everywhere. So the cobblestone alley ways and tunnels of buildings in Florence are not too familiar. When I got off the bus, I had some déjà vu going on. This area outside the city felt so much more like the areas of the United States that I’m used to. I had to walk another 10-15 minutes to get to the actual festival, and along the way I saw so many familiar residential elements. There were trees and decent sized sidewalks. I saw parks, people playing basketball, apartment complexes, etc. I had honestly forgotten that fall was starting until I was surrounded by trees beginning to show spots of orange. It was so nice to get some time outside of the city. And to be honest, I probably could have taken a different bus line to get closer to the courtyard, but I really did enjoy the walk through the park. When we got there, we saw a few small tents with plenty of pop up shop style stands and some beer stands towards the back. If you’ve ever been to an art festival in the United States, this small festival had a very similar feel. It was nice to experience something familiar, but with a different cultural twist. The styles felt very similar and had similar colors to popular American vintage styles, but with different fabrics and patterns than I’m used to. Like, if you’ve ever been to an art festival with vintage stands, you’ll definitely recognize the brightly colored windbreakers and 80s blazers on display. There were plenty of those here, but also some interesting shirts and skirts with odd patterns and fabrics that I wasn’t used to in the US. There were also a ton of vintage bags of all kinds of styles, and an unlimited supply of boots. So many boots. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring cash with me, so I couldn’t actually buy anything. Getting to see all of the clothes and experience the atmosphere was honestly enough for me though. Do you ever see anyone with the way they’re dressed and their general disposition and you think: Wow, they are so much cooler than me? Yeah, that was like every Italian there. A cool, artsy person with tattoos who was into vintage clothes and craft beer. I’m hoping I got at least 1% cooler just by being there. All in all, it was a good experience getting to visit this small festival. It was super cute, and the experience getting there made me feel more comfortable with the idea of venturing to the edges of the city of Florence. I wasn’t brave enough to try to strike up conversation with anyone, but I think venturing out into the local scene was already something that I’m proud to have done. This arena has local markets every so often, so I’m sure I could probably visit another one and try again. This time with cash and more bravery. |
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