I touched down on American soil in mid-May, after four months of studying abroad in Barcelona. Everything was different.
As I would soon explain to friends, family, or anyone who would listen, my experience abroad was a blur of new faces and Vueling seat buckles. It was that first bite of patatas bravas, the time I passed the cathedral while a man in a scarf serenaded the square with something that felt like a love song. It was my 10 roommates, nude beaches, a bloody elbow after cliff jumping, leaving the club at 5 a.m. and wondering what was next.
But while I daydreamed about patatas bravas in the Atlanta airport, my friends back in Chapel Hill were experiencing another day of mid-70s temperatures — with finals completed, Nike shorts on and maybe some hopes of sneaking into the Lark Chapel Hill pool.
I’m sure they had a fun semester. They probably went to basketball games and studied in Davis (I knew a guy in Barcelona named Davis). I’ll ask them about their semester, eventually. But for now, as far as I’m concerned, the priority is ensuring that my friends don’t forget that I studied abroad.
If you're in a similar boat, here's how I'm doing exactly that:
Refer to the P2P as “the tube” or "the metro"
It’s not our fault public transit is mostly nonexistent in the United States. If you studied abroad, you’re used to sleek, timely trains, dingy subway stations and hopping turnstiles. The P2P may not have turnstiles, but it certainly has seats you can jump over if you’re craving a rush of adrenaline.
Better yet, you can pretend the blacked-out first years around you are just cool Europeans who had a little too much red wine during their four-hour lunch break.
