Week #5: There Will Be No Week #6

Tuesday, February 25th

Life truly feels unreal right now. In 48 hours, I’ll be on a flight back home to New York, where I’ll be on break for a month from school. Why has our adventure stopped? The SU Florence program has been suspended; therefore, this Thursday, I’ll be returning home two months early. The Coronavirus has spread to Italy, making it one of the 3rd most populated countries with the disease. For the safety of the students, we are all being sent home.

Hearing the news broke my heart, quite literally. The day began as any other school day would. I woke at my usual 10 am, got ready for school, and ate our typical breakfast of biscotti’s and croissants in the kitchen with Amanda sitting across from me. We said “Ciao” to Paola as we left our apartment and walked to school for what we didn’t know would be the last time.

Upon arriving at school, students were buzzing with anxiety. It had been announced that the NYU Florence program, the largest abroad program in Florence, was sending their students home by Thursday. We joked at the thought of being sent back, and how horrible it would be to go so soon. Little did we know that we would be them by the afternoon.

Saturday, February 29th

The school had set up a meeting for students to discuss the Coronavirus and any details related to us as abroad students. Originally, I wasn’t going to go because it didn’t seem pressing, and my naïve self thought, “Well, it wouldn’t happen to us.” As the day went on, though, I heard of more and more people attending, including my friends, so I decided to go. As my friends and I anxiously waited in the basement of the Villa Rosa, I did my homework assignment that was due Monday and began studying for the Italian exam I had the following day. Thinking back to this now reminds me of how unaware and normal things felt until that meeting. I was doing work and hanging out with my friends, a daily part of my routine in Florence.

The meeting had way more students than expected. So much so that they had to move the meeting outside to the courtyard. As we all waited anxiously on the lawn, we knew that second that Sasha came out that the news wasn’t good. They announced that our program had been suspended.

It felt like an eternity had gone by before people began to protest and cry. I remember hearing the words and just sitting there, letting it sink in. My mind couldn’t process the fact that the end of my abroad had come two months early without warning. Time seemed to stop as I looked at the faces of my friends and classmates. The looks of utter shock and despair were written on everyone’s faces. I hugged my friends closely as we cried, attempting to hear how to get out of the country as soon as possible. People were on the phone with their parents. Others were hugging their professors; some just quickly left to try and book the soonest flight home. I felt bad for the administrators. They were being bombarded with angry student questions that they didn’t have the answer to. I just felt frozen.

The walk home consisted of Amanda, Steph, and I calling our parents and trying to figure out how to get home. It wasn’t our usual walk of laughing and telling each other about our day at school. We walked to the grocery store to buy wine and bread for the last time. We stood in the aisle in a daze, trying to savor what felt like being a local Italy was for the last time.

Returning home, Amanda and I were met by Paola, our host mom, telling us in Italian that she was sorry that this happened to us and that she was angry about the events that had unfolded. We knew that this was all out of our control and that there was no one to blame, but it still pained us to comprehend.

The rest of the night was emotionally and mentally draining. Dinner was sad because we knew it was one of the last, we would have together as a family. I was frantically looking up flights with my mom until the AM hours, trying to book a flight before we would be officially kicked out on Sunday. We got our suitcases from the basement so we could start packing. My phone was blowing up with text messages and DM’s from friends from home and Syracuse, telling me how sorry they were that we had to come home but also how excited they were to see us. This didn’t help how I was feeling at all. I felt like no one could understand how awful this feeling was. At that moment, everyone felt insensitive. All I wanted to do was talk to my Florence friends because we all were feeling the same thing. I went to bed that night, hoping that this was all a dream.

My flight was booked for Thursday afternoon, so Wednesday was our last full day in Florence. I got together with my friends, and we had ourselves a day. We walked around the city to buy our family gifts and ate delicious food. The weather was windy and cloudy, which felt symbolic of how we were feeling, and as though Florence was sad, we were leaving too. We laughed and cried a lot that day as we went to our favorite spots for the last time. We went to Monkey Bar that night together and sat in our normal booth. We drank beer and reminisced on all the memories we had created in a short time in Florence. After we wished each other safe travels home, I walked home that night with a pit in my stomach. I hadn’t fully cried yet, and I knew it was coming soon.

Crying at the grocery store.

Our Last Night Together

Host Fam ❤️

Going to the airport the next morning and saying goodbye to our host family was flat out sad. The airport was packed with Florence students going home, and although I would be traveling alone when I left Florence, it felt nice to have my last final moments surrounded by people who knew what we were leaving behind. Before getting onto the plane, I took one final look at Italy. I saw the beautiful mountains and smelled the air. I knew the onslaught of tears was coming as I tearfully said ‘hello’ to the flight attendant. As we took off, I couldn’t hold back. I cried. As we got flew higher and higher and I saw Italy disappear, different waves of emotions flooded me, and I couldn’t process them. The strange looks that I got from the Italians sitting next to me didn’t matter. I just wanted these sad feelings to go away. The rest of the trip home was a blur. When I met my parents at JFK, I cried the entire way home.

So, there will be no week six journal. This entry will be my last one. I wish I could say what lies ahead of me, but at this point, everything is so uncertain. Will I be going back to main campus? How are classes going to continue? So many unanswered questions, but all I can do right now is self-quarantine and hope for brighter days. I hope that things get better for us, I really do.

Sincerely,

Samantha ❤