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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