Re-Entry Essay: Welcome Home

Today, April 30th is the day that I should’ve come home from Florence. If things had gone to plan, my mom tells me that she would’ve met me at the airport with the rest of my family holding balloons and a “Welcome Home” sign. It’s exactly what I envisioned when I thought about the end of my abroad experience. Instead, when I came home on February 28th, I somberly walked to the airport parking lot with tears streaming down my face, unable to process the fact that I was back two months early. Since that day, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on my short time in Italy. While mostly painful to think about, I’m at a current point of half appreciation and half sadness. When I left Italy, I felt like being abroad didn’t change me, which is something I heard countless times before my departure, and I was upset about it. This was supposed to be an experience that I would treasure forever. An experience that was supposed to change me for the better, and all I could think about was how robbed I felt. In the extreme case, I felt like I had endured a death, one that only my abroad friends could understand. It was quick, unforeseen, and heartbreaking. After a period of mourning, though, I’ve begun to move on, step by step, and I’ve realized what I learned while being abroad.

During my time, I encountered a handful of easy and challenging things. One thing I initially deemed to be difficult but found surprisingly easy was navigating the city of Florence. In the beginning, I felt like I had the word “tourist” stamped on my forehead for all the times I had my phone out, trying to find directions to where I was going. In all due time, though, having to walk to every single place I was going helped me learned the streets like the back of my hand. I knew how to get to the city center, how long it would take me to get to school, and the quickest route to get me to All’Antico Vinaio. By the time my parents visited me in February, I already knew how to navigate the streets without a map. My parents were so impressed, and I was impressed with myself too.

Concerning getting around the city, one thing I found difficult to figure out was how to use the bus. To get from my apartment the train station, it was a 45-minute walk. After one early morning trek in the pouring rain to get to Santa Maria Novella, I declared then and there that I wanted to learn how to use the bus. I downloaded the bus app to look at the confusing bus schedule and studied the bus stops near my apartment. I used to stick my head out of my bedroom window to see how accurate the bus was in comparison to the schedule. I was dedicated to finding out how to use it. I learned how to buy a bus ticket at the tabbacchi and tracked my route to get from place to place. It all went downhill the day I was supposed to meet my parents for an early morning train ride to Rome. The bus stopped using its original app and switched to a new platform that morning, meaning the schedule from the night before was wrong. I only realized it the morning of when I stood at the station in the freezing cold and couldn’t find a taxi anywhere in sight as I broke a stress sweat. I eventually made it to the train station in time, finding a lone taxi 4 blocks away, but the entire ride to Rome, I again studied the newly issued bus app to learn how I could go home. My proudest moment is when I took the bus from school to the train station and hopped on a train to Naples all by myself. I had finally figured it out, all alone, and I remember sitting on that train and just smiling to myself because I did it. I look back on that experience now and give myself a pat on the back.

Another challenging thing I endured abroad was how to deal with looking different in another country. I’m a half Korean and half Italian, American woman, and there were a handful of cases where my race, origin, and gender were used against me. There were times were people would make derogatory Asian insults to my Asian roommate and me. I encountered this the first week I was in Italy, and I couldn’t help but feel hurt by it. Besides that, there were numerous occasions where I would walk into a shop, and upon paying without even a hello, the cashier would ask me what I was or where I was from. The first few times made me self-conscious, mainly because I would be the only one out of my white friends to be asked. I learned to make it into a humorous interaction in the coming weekes when I would respond with, “I’m Italian” or “I’m from New York”. It was funny to see their confused faces as I paid with a smile and no further questions. As for gender, during a trip to Siena with my three girlfriends, we were walking home late to the train station, and a group of men began shouting to us and following us. It was the first time I ever felt unsafe and threatened in Italy. They called out racist remarks to my roommate and me and catcalled us all. All we could do at that moment was rush to where we were going and with our heads down. I felt so helpless because there wasn’t anything I could say back to them. The only way I could deal with it was to let my friend who spoke Italian refute them and feel the relief of getting on the train back home. This was one of my more stressful experiences while abroad. Still, it only enforced something that I taught myself at a young age and try to accept it now. That any remarks made at me based on my looks have to do nothing with who I am, and everything to do with how those people are raised. I know that I did nothing wrong and that my insecurities will only be heightened if I let people get to me.

As for returning home, I’ve gone through a process of learning how I’ve changed from abroad. In the beginning, I felt like nothing happened to me, and it made me upset. I felt like I had been robbed of the potential I had to grow in Italy, and because of that, I felt like my growth stunted. Under those feelings of anguish, though, these past 2 months have uncovered the ways I’ve transformed. For one thing, I’ve come to appreciate all the things I was able to accomplish while abroad. It was no small feat to travel to a country where I don’t speak the language, live with a host family, and uproot myself from a place where I felt comfortable. That’s an experience I’m glad to say I lived through because now I feel like I can get through anything and everything, honestly. There have been multiple occurrences since coming home where I might think to myself, “I can’t do that” or “I can’t get through this,” and I think back to my abroad. It gives me a push of strength when I know that I’ve been through tough situations and have overcome. It’s given me a sense that I can do things, even when it might look like I can’t. I’m glad abroad has given me this newfound power. As for people noticing a change in me, that hasn’t come yet since the opportunity hasn’t presented itself. However, I look forward to returning to campus and honing these skills. I feel okay with people not recognizing it because I know within myself that this is the best gift I could’ve asked for at the end of all of it.

To conclude, my lifestyle has most definitely changed since coming home as has everyone else’s across the world due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. In the beginning, it was rough. I was sad about being home, my friends were all at school, and I felt intense waves of disassociation. It was hard. Plain and simple. Being in quarantine is a hard pill to swallow, but I’ve been trying to find the small joys in life. I’ve gotten to take up hobbies that I haven’t done in ages like drawing, reading books, and doing puzzles. I’ve gotten to spend a lot of time with my family, which is something we haven’t been able to do since my brother and I went to college. I enjoy family dinners a lot more now, and I enjoy taking walks with them around the neighborhood. I’m working at my family’s ice cream store, which keeps me busy and on schedule, so I still feel productive during the week. Most importantly, though, I’ve become more familiar with myself. Not only have I been able to fully digest my abroad experience, but I’m facing the person I am when I’m not surrounded by friends or enveloped in school. It feels like a long-awaited break that I’ve needed. Today, I can easily say that abroad was an experience of a lifetime, and I’m eager to see what the next chapter of my life looks like.