As I type this, I’m sitting down on my bed back home in the United States for the first time in what feels like centuries. It was a whirlwind of travelling, and my phone has changed back to Eastern Standard Time, but my body hasn’t. I have been reflecting on the different aspects of being abroad and going through all the things I’ve learned and the ways I’ve changed, and I can truly say, it has been a transformative experience. At every point in life, we always tend to think that we know ourselves fully and completely, only to be proven wrong the next day – and I think this is true for me. While my core identity didn’t necessarily change, I have gained a new perspective in understanding myself and the world around me that I wouldn’t have had if I had not lived in another country for a few months. One of the main things that I’ve realized this semester is that the world is always much bigger than we imagine it. Of course, this sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s something that we don’t actively think about on a daily basis. In America, if you grew up here, chances are you spoke English and saw the world through a very Americanized lens. It makes sense because on a daily basis, we aren’t necessarily interacting with a different language or a different culture because, well, we’re usually surrounded by Americans (in all the different meanings of the word). But going abroad opened my eyes to entirely different ways of looking at the world. There are other governments, other clothing trends, other movies, other EVERYTHING that we as Americans don’t even realize exists because it falls outside of our daily orbit. Having this type of experience makes you question what you know the world to be in such a way that it makes you want to see more and more and more of it. If studying abroad has given me anything, it is the intense desire to keep traveling and exposing myself to different experiences. I think it is going to be very hard to leave the study abroad mindset and revert back to an American idea of things. But, if anything, having this experience has reminded me that it is possible to do your own work and fill in the gaps even when you don’t always have access to another culture or city or language. And I think that is what is going to help me adjust to being back from abroad, is keeping in touch with all of the friends I made in different countries and texting them in their language to practice and sharing part of myself with them just like they’ve done with me. There’s a whole world full of people that you’ve yet to meet, and just going up to someone and saying “hi” has made all the different in my experience abroad, and it gives me something to look forward to as I hope to remain connected to this amazing and interesting community that I was, if only for a few months, a part of.
Tag: Florence
I Am More Than My Resume: Finding Friends and Myself Across Europe
People always think it’s funny when I bring it up, but I cannot stress enough how different of a person I am now than I was during high school. Like, complete 180º different. Going away to college didn’t just give me a chance to meet people outside of the small town I grew up in, but it also affirmed and challenged different parts of my identity that I didn’t even know were possible. It’s been a long process of coming into myself (and it’s not done), but I have been more in tune with my communities and identities in a way that I had never had before college, and in a way that set me up for an abroad experience.
Many people say that going abroad is a chance to “find yourself.” And, in many ways, I believe that this is true. Spending time in a community that is outside of what you are used to makes you think more critically about how you walk through the world. But there’s also the importance of the period before going abroad that is very important in accessing your identity. Doing a self-inventory before I went abroad was a very important part of putting me in the right mindset to travel and live in such a different space. The communities and bonds that I left behind in DC for the semester have been very important in understanding how important a support network is for me. There is a necessary labor that happens in building a space for yourself, and it is so important to have that space in order to be safely challenged and continuously grow, knowing that you have people around to catch you if you need it.
One of the biggest culture shocks for me since going abroad has been the intense paradigm shift in identifying with the work that you do. In the US, it is a given that your identity is constructed by what you spend the majority of your time doing (perhaps work or school). It’s not uncommon to meet someone for the first time and be asked the age-old question: “So what do you do?” It has been so ingrained in my mind that I began to also identify with whatever job I was doing, or even what courses I was taking. In Europe, the idea of identifying yourself first as your career or job is so foreign, that often it doesn’t even come up in conversation until much later in knowing a new person. Actually, I couldn’t even tell you the jobs of most of the people the people that I’ve met so far in my travel experience. It just simply isn’t as important. And the reason I bring this up, is because it has made me consider my identities even more (ironically). People don’t ask me what job I’m working or what internships I’ve had, but they do ask about my family, my hobbies, and my passions. In this way, I’ve been able to actually take more ownership of my identities because of how much more they mean in this cultural context. People ask because they want to know, and I’ve become prouder to share these parts of myself that previously might have been secondary to whether or not I’m working a “hillternship.”
I’ve seen some beautiful places and met some amazing people, and each part of this experience has been a way to both affirm and safely challenge how I walk through a space. That is not to say that you *need* to study abroad to get out of your comfort zone, but sometimes you need to peek over the other side of the fence to see something new in the world and in yourself. Expanding your mindset, and also your community, gives you a space to become more of yourself than you ever thought possible, and in the best cases, gives you people to always fall back on no matter the circumstances.
New Identity in a New Language
By Dom Reynoso
Over the past few years since moving away to college, I have been on a journey of discovering how my different identities and parts of myself interact with each other. I typically identify myself as a Latinx gay man, which are two identities that have combined and contradicted each other throughout my entire life. It has led to a lot of confusion growing up, and it has been an experience of slipping through the cracks. I’m not always seen as “Latinx enough” to operate in those spaces, and at times not “queer enough” to operate in queer spaces because of my race. I think it comes from the reality of how our communities are represented and marketed to the world. When I’m at home in the US, it’s often a struggle to express my identities to people in a way that doesn’t detach them from myself. People typically want an explanation that is coherent with their perception of the world; they want an explanation of “Latinx” that sounds like what they’ve seen in the movies, or a definition of “queer” that can be explained to them without their discomfort. As you can imagine, it makes it difficult to parcel myself out in this way and explain my identities so that they feel lived-in instead of hollow.
Pride in identity is something that I have been challenged with since coming to college. Before that, I had never understood that I could express pride in something that wasn’t normative. And, when I grew to love and express my identities in college, I think it sometimes confused some people. It evoked a sense of disruption when I talked about the intersections of my identities around people who didn’t expect me to. But slowly over time, I got more and more comfortable with the fact that I can claim my identities without shame or fear. Going abroad is such an interesting experience because, in many ways, it is like starting all over learning how to express yourself. What seemed so easy before now exists within the context of an entirely different culture and language. In Italy, people claim their identities in a very different way that continues to change my perception of identity. For many Italians I’ve met, they have a much stronger sense of regional identity than we might find in the US. People classify themselves by their hometown/region first, and then perhaps by being Italian, and in extremely rare cases, as European. It creates a very different aspect of identity than I’m typically used to, but it has a historical reasoning. For many Italians, they remain in the regions that they’re from, and different parts of Italy even speak different dialects (that, according to my host mom, she herself can’t even fully understand when she travels to different regions). This kind of construction of identity is vastly different than what I’m used to, but it is refreshing in the sense that people here are just used to claiming their regional identities more frequently and with more enthusiasm.
It is interesting how a culture and language shift changes your perception of how to think about yourself and the different parts of you that you show to the world. It’s been about a month since I’ve arrived in the country, and I’m surprised everyday about the different things I pick up on. There’s still a lot to be discovered here, and little by learning I’m learning how to define myself again (and maybe this time in Italian).
A Farewell To Florence
These past three and a half months have been a whirlwind, but I am so proud to say that I completed a semester abroad in Florence, Italy. There were as many bad days as there were good days, but all in all, I believe that the places I’ve seen and the discoveries I’ve made about myself, Italian culture, and academic culture in a foreign country were all rewarding experiences that I will carry with me for this rest of my life.
As a friend of mine so eloquently stated in a Facebook message last week: “Finals still suck even when you’re studying abroad”. And after finishing three term papers, studying for four exams, and presenting two presentations (one of which was for Italian class, and I must admit, my Italian is still a little rusty), I can definitely agree with this statement. However, once I finished all of my assignments and exams, I felt truly accomplished and treated myself to a few farewell activities with friends.
Its The Most Wonderful Time of The Year
Although I only have a mere 9 days left in Italy, I am enjoying every minute of my remaining time. This weekend I had a Christmastime themed blast with friends! On Friday, I went to the Mercato di Natale (Christmas Market) in Santa Croce. The market, which began in Florence in 2003 is modeled after German Christmas markets and featured a variety of both Italian and German holiday food and decorations. After trying a delicious soft pretzel and buying some gifts for relatives at the market, I then simply took a tour of all of the Christmas lights and trees in downtown Florence. The tree that was most stunning was certainly the tree in Piazza Repubblica.
...continue reading "Its The Most Wonderful Time of The Year"
Communicating With Your Host Family
For all of you prospective study abroad students that plan to live with a host family next semester, heed this one word: communication!
Overall, my experience with my host family has truly been invaluable. By living with my host mom who was born and raised in Florence, I have been able to learn much more about Florentine culture and to navigate around Florence than I probably would have were I not living with a host mom.
My Final Weeks In Florence
As the semester comes to a close and each day I look at Christmas decorations being put up at local cafes and restaurants, I keep asking myself in what ways do I think this semester abroad has been rewarding and have I achieved all that I planned to achieve before I came here?
In response to the first question, I can definitely say that I feel the most rewarding part of my semester abroad has been my homestay. As an African American studying abroad in Italy and as an African American participating in a study abroad program that includes roughly only 20 minority students out of a total of approximately 200 students, there were definitely moments during my time here where I felt.... lets just say…..lonely and isolated from the cultural experiences I am accustomed to. In some ways, this is not a bad thing because being able to immerse myself in a culture different from my own was exactly what I wanted to experience while abroad. However, the neighborhood that reside in Florence is also not very diverse, and after while it feels weird that some days the only other black person I see is Olivia Pope while watching Scandal on Hulu.
My Fall Break Vacation
November has arrived am I now down to only 5 weeks left in wonderful Florence! After a lovely fall break, classes have started again and I am so happy to say that I am communicating with host family almost completely in Italian.
I spent five days of my fall break in Venice. During my vacation in Venice, I stayed in a hotel located of the Isola delle Rose (Island of Roses).The view of the Grand Canal of Venice from the rooftop was absolutely stunning.
Give It A Try
Recently, I feel as though the majority of my past blog posts have been a tedious recounting of all the activities I’ve done and sights I’ve seen since I have arrived in Italy as opposed a more truthful reflection of my abroad experiences. Thus, for this blog post I’d like to give a more honest description of the past week.
The two and a half months I have spent in Florence have been some of the most rewarding of my life. I have seen places I never thought I would visit until I was much older and I have continually tried to expose myself to a new culture and adapt to a new way of living and learning.
Countdown to Fall Semester Break!
I survived midterms week and am now super excited to begin my fall break vacation starting tomorrow in Venice! This week has been somewhat exhausting between studying and researching all the places I plan to visit during the next week, but as always I managed to locate some interesting study and eating spots in downtown Florence.