Life After Study Abroad

Overlooking Athens

I have been back in the states for a month now. I can honestly say I didn’t really have problems adjusting back to life at home. I flew out of Paris in the morning (I won’t even get into the delays and reroutes and airport craziness.. it seems to be guaranteed to come with flying) and landed in Philly around 4 p.m. It’s weird flying “back in time.”

For the first few days while I was home I had agreed to housesit/babysit for my aunt in Annapolis. I figured this would be a great way to unwind before jumping back into my life at home. It would also help me readjust to the timezone because I would be forced to wake up in the morning and take my cousins to school and go to bed at a normal time. Somehow I completly avoided jetlag!

My next stop was the beach where I would visit Tim. I was super excited to jump into the summer (and I really needed a tan). I got there and the first day on the beach was great but my on-again-off-again head cold was getting worse and it felt like it had moved into my chest. I tend to get bronchitis so this is what I assumed I had. I ended up coughing so badly that I pulled a muscle in my chest and had to drive home (not a fun trip). Since it was Memorial Day weekend nothing was open but the emergency room. Luckily we got in and out but turns out I had an acute sinus infection and they suspect I’ve had it for up to 4 months! Well, that explains why I was always sick in Paris…

Almost 3 weeks later and my cold symptoms aren’t completely gone. Sucks. In the meantime I have started working fulltime with my internship and this has turned out to be the hardest readjustment. It is so hard for me to sit at a desk all day when just last month I was trotting around Europe. No comparison. I can’t stop searching plane tickets and destinations online.

All I can think about now is where I’ll go next and how I’ll get there. Going abroad seemed to make my to-do list grow rather than allow me to check off a bunch of my items. I actually made a checklist before leaving for Paris (how Tiffany of me) and here are the results:

Destress my life. Well, this was easily done in Europe but it seems that being gone for 4 months left me with a lot of things to deal with when I got home. Preparing for fall and my final year has been work but I think that’s in comparison to the life I was living in Paris. 3 classes, nothing to do but explore and try new things… oh I’m going to miss it.
Do a tour of Italy (and maybe Greece, too). CHECK!
Celebrate Carnivale while in Italy. I ended up being in Munich for Carnivale. It was fun seeing everyone dress up.
Enjoy each moment of life. Considering the thousands of pictures I took, there were a lot of little moments I enjoyed.
Go to Dublin for St. Patty’s! Spent St. Patty’s in Paris not Dublin. Just one of many reason I need to go back.
Visit Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Barcelona, Croatia (really anywhere I can). Haha I only hit London on this list… but Munich, Menton, Monaco, Venice, Florence, Rome, Athens, Santorini, Naxos and Paros surely sufficed. Next on my list.. Spain or Croatia.
Do a bar crawl in Paris!! (I supposedly live a block away from the best bar street!) We never made it past the first few, however we stayed out pretty late and discovered quite a few bars on Oberkampf.
Take beautiful pictures of Europe. My first camera got stolen so I had to buy a cheap Nikon digital camera… not ideal but I made do with what I had.
Film my adventures in Europe (yayy Flip). Now I just have to put them on my computer and do something with it all.
Blow all my money in Europe (that won’t be hard). CHECK!
Get abs (after I return from Europe haha). Working on it… kinda.