Introvert Abroad
Pushing Myself to Experience the World
11/12/2018 0 Comments We're Almost There It’s November. You’ve been hit with the realization that your study abroad experience is more than halfway over. You’ve got just about a month left, and you want to make sure that you don’t waste it. After all, when are you ever going to be living in Italy again? I mean, you never know what the future holds, but for right now, we’re going to pretend that this is our last month to enjoy living in Florence ever. There are so many things that you’ve done, but let’s not forget that there are so many things you haven’t done! Time is running out! You’re going to be on the plane before you know it! You’re going to be sitting at home, filled with regret! What are you doing? Get up! Go out! See the city! Don’t spend a moment sitting and relaxing in your room! You can do that at home! Go, go, go, go- Ok. Don’t panic. Let’s stop for a second and just relax. I’m not sure about you, but this is a pretty good snapshot of what my brain has been like for the past few days. As I was looking at the schedule for my internship, I realized that I would only be going to 12 more opera shows at St. Mark’s. And then it really hit me that I’m only going to be in Florence for another 5 weeks. 5 weeks? In about two months I’ll be in Clemson again, getting ready for my Spring semester back in South Carolina. See, I was initially filled with panic. I thought that I was wasting my time by taking naps or watching Netflix in my room. I was beating myself up in my mind for not living every moment to the fullest. But I really just needed to step back for a second. I feel like something that I have a tendency to forget is that I’m not on vacation here. I’m living here. We’re all living here for months, so in order to be sane and live normal lives, you gotta have lazy days, you gotta have naps, you gotta relax. I think it’s a good point in the semester for the reminder that everybody’s study abroad experience is different and everybody has a different definition of “fun”. Some people enjoy traveling and seeing a ton of different countries when they study abroad, some people want to stay in their host city the whole time. Both are fine, and you don’t need to feel bad for “squandering” your time in Europe. After all, everyone at home is still going to think it’s super cool if all you did was hang out in Florence and go to cafes to do homework or something. Let’s be honest, the life of the most boring Florentine is still so cool and interesting. That being said, we do have a lot of time on our hands here, and Florence does have some staple experiences for the tourist. So personally, I thought it would be cool to write down a short bucket list of “Things I Want to Do Before I Leave Florence”. Here’s the short list:
And that’s it! Honestly! I genuinely feel like I’d be more than satisfied with all of my experiences in Florence if I did those things before I left. And that’s more than ok! Recently I’ve been trying to work on letting myself just live my own life the way that I want to. It’s honestly ok to just live a simple life and be happy with that. In fact, the other day, my roommate asked me if I’d noticed myself changing since coming abroad. And as cliché as it might be, the answer is yes! The main difference that I’ve noticed is that I’m becoming more ok with just being who I am and not apologizing for not being something else. And I think that’s the most important thing to remember about going and studying abroad. The whole point is to experience it in the way that makes you happy. The best thing about studying abroad is that you get to see all these new things, meet all these new people, and just soak it all in and just let it change your view of your world and yourself in whatever way it does. We’re all just here to experience and grow and learn and change and just be happy! I know that I’ll be bringing that mindset back home with me, of just trying to live my life for me. Of just trying to do what makes me happy without living for someone else. I know that I still have a decent amount of time left here, but I already want to say “thank you” to Florence for helping me grow. This post may have seemed like a lot of rambling, but it was really just my roundabout way of saying “Hey, let’s all just chill and use the last month of being here to just experience this place and be happy doing it.” I remember when I first got here and I was so blown away by every little thing that happened. Just walking down the street was wild to me. Seeing the cobblestone and the Italian signs and the clotheslines and The Duomo were all so overwhelming, but fantastic at the same time. Now I just kinda put earbuds in and briskly walk past The Duomo trying to avoid tourist groups and get to class on time. It’s almost sad how easily this place has become normalized to us, or at least, to me. So to go out with a bang, I already decided how I’ll be living for my last 1.5-2 weeks in Florence. I’m gonna go back to the beginning. I’m going to live like a tourist so I can leave remembering how incredible this city is. And I’m talking go big or go home. I’m gonna have my fancy camera around my neck and buy any last minute souvenirs and go out to eat at new places and just take the time to walk slowly and stare at everything around me. I hope I’m not obnoxious, but at that point, who cares? I spent so much of this semester trying to blend in with Italians to fly under the radar so people will stop trying to sell me flowers or something. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll definitely still be doing that for the next few weeks, but at least for my last few days, I will be a true tourist. I’m just gonna give up on trying to convince people that I’m not an American tourist because, guess what, that’s exactly what I am. I’ll let you know how it goes, but I have a feeling it’ll be awesome.
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