Catching Up

Ok. So, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything. The last few weeks have been a bit crazy. The last time I blogged it was my second to last day in Europe. Now, it’s been five days that I’ve been home and I now find myself sitting in my very messy, overstuffed room in Los Alamitos.

I don’t even really know where to go with this post specifically—other than just catch everyone up on the last few weeks. I plan on writing at least a few more posts as I adjust to life back at home since that’s a big part of the study abroad experience as well.

So here goes. I got to spend my last night in Europe in Paris. It was very nice and a bit emotional. I got there in the late afternoon because the trains were striking. So, I walked around a bit. I got a nutella crêpe and an espresso in a café. Then, I headed over to Pont des Arts to put my lock on the lock bridge as I’d blogged about doing months ago! (I’ll probably do a separate post for this soon.) Then I treated myself to a nice last dinner before going back to my hostel and preparing for a 25 hour long day of travel to meet my mom and my sister in Costa Rica.

And yes. 25 hours straight. That included getting up and getting on a shuttle to Charles de Gaulle; chilling at the airport there; getting on a nine hour flight from Paris to Miami; stressing out having to go through luggage claims, customs, and security again in less than an hour so I could hug my mom and sister; having a 6 hour layover in Miami where it was the afternoon and it was around 1 AM in the time zone my body had been in (however, I sat on the floor of the terminal watching the world cup for a while so that was nice); then getting on a second two and a half hour flight to San José, Costa Rica; going through customs; getting a taxi; and arriving at the hotel where my mom and sister were. Yeah, it was a long day. I wasn’t too tired all things considered thanks to following probably some of the best travel advice I’ve gotten—being that rather than making yourself stay awake since it’ll be nighttime when you land or whatever, just sleep when you’re tired, eat when you’re hungry. You’ll have to adjust to the time change no matter what so just take care of yourself in the process.

Our week in Costa Rica was incredible! We stayed in a resort which was very nice. Multiple pools, really good food, access to the beach, zip lining, massages (which my shoulders really needed—that backpack I’d been carrying around shocked my family with how heavy it was), and lots of quality time with my mom and my sister! It was also incredibly hot and humid—something I’m definitely not used to. We all did pretty well with sunscreen and bug spray until about the last day where my mom and I got decently burnt.

Then, after a week of relaxing and getting to be with people I loved, it was time to start the journey home to the U.S. I was feeling really excited about getting to get home and see my dad at the airport and start seeing friends I hadn’t seen in a while. The flights seemed to take way longer that day. But it was nice having company for the first time in a while to travel with.

Being purely honest, however, and not trying to be a downer, pretty much from the moment the pilot announced our descent into L.A. until pulling up to my house—I fought tears and/or cried. Which I felt bad about doing with all of my family being so excited to see me and have me back. But the closer we got to actually landing the more real it was that my semester abroad was and is over. It was a bit overwhelming. I saw huge skyscraper buildings, the color brown everywhere, thousands of cars driving on multiple lane highways and freeways, advertisements all in English for American brands, traffic, smog… and I’m not trying to rip on LA but talk about a culture shock. If you’ve seen my pictures of Cannes where I’ve gotten used to flying into Nice over the Mediterranean Sea with pink and yellow houses that come into view in the little hills around the city—you can imagine, I’m sure, the stark difference. So that just really hit me all at once with it all coming into view.

And now I’m sitting here. It’s been a few days that I’ve had to be home. I’ve gotten to see some friends. I’ve eaten more cheeseburgers already than I think I did all semester abroad. I already had doctor and dentist appointments: fun fact, my teeth got healthier while I was gone. I did get to go line dancing at one of my favorite places on Wednesday night which was a blast. Yesterday night I got to see the new house my mom bought while I was gone and that she’s moving into next month.

I think the scary thing is that… things really do feel almost exactly the same. I kind of feel like I never left. Which I’m sure to family and friends seems outrageous. But truly, I’ve already shared lots of stories and told people about my trip and these things are so vivid in my head but they feel so far removed. It really does make me wonder at times if it all really did happen or if it was all some weird dream. And luckily I’ve got social media and friends from Cannes liking my photos. And I’ve got this blog. And I’ve got photos and videos. I know it happened. I think my biggest worry is just that I’ll go back to being exactly who I was before I left and that the person I got to be while I was gone will somehow just go away. And I know that’s not true. But it does leave me, and a lot of my AIFS friends as well, in this weird space of trying to incorporate a ton of new things about yourself into what really feels like an old way of life.

It may sound a bit dramatic. But I know the people that have traveled or have done something like study abroad can relate. And I know the people who’ve been consistently reading this blog, even if they can’t fully understand, can see what I mean when I say these sorts of things. So here we go, snapping back to reality a bit. Catching up.