Photo via Brenda Winn ’17

I was told countless times that studying abroad was going to be the best experience of my life, and I really believed that this was true. I pictured myself going out to clubs, and eating all sorts of new food, and see-ing all of the things that you’re supposed to see in Europe. I pictured myself coming back to the U.S. as a different girl, independent and worldly, leaving Buffalo and Canton in the dust for a while. One of the smartest people I know told me before I left that if I were to videotape myself before I left for Denmark and then watch it when I came back, I wouldn’t even recognize my-self. I wanted this to happen. I wanted myself to change, and I did, but it certainly wasn’t in the way that I expected.

I was itching to get out of New York, out of Canton and Buffalo. I wanted adventure. The home that had been a place of relaxation and family time had become stifling, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I took a deep breath and smiled as I watched my house disappear when we left for the airport. I even managed to keep it together when I was saying goodbye to my parents. The reality didn’t hit me fully until I looked back at them as I stepped through security to see my mom sobbing and my dad with tears standing in his eyes. He never cries. No one ever told me about this part. No one ever told me how scared and alone I would feel as I sat waiting to board the plane. No one ever prepared me for the fear that I felt as I stood on the doorstep of the family who I would be living with for the next five months, and no one told me how strange and out of place I would feel at Easter dinner with my extended host family when no one spoke English.

I’m not trying to say that studying abroad was not what I had hoped it would be– it was everything I could have wanted and more, but it isn’t all happiness and great photos. I have learned so much in the past four months as I have traveled and learned how to live with a family that isn’t mine. I’ve learned how to cope with being lonely and sad at times, and how to call a friend or go for a walk when all I wanted was a hug from my mother. I’ve made friends that I know will continue to play a huge part in my life even after I return home, and I’ve gotten to do things that my parents never dreamed of do-ing when they were 20. Most importantly, though, I’ve figured out that my family and my pokey little hometown and even Canton are not stifling– they are everything. A friend of mine sent me this quote the other day that brought tears to my eyes: “Maybe you had to leave in order to really miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved your starting point was.”

So go abroad. Do it. Eat lots of pastry and drink lots of beer. Hike the highlands, look out over the city from the top tower of cathedrals and blow the last of your money on that trip that you have always wanted to take. Play with your little host sister even when you have work to do and smile at babies on the train. Do all that, and do so much more. Be prepared to feel a little uncomfortable and sad and be prepared to learn from it and come back a different person. The one thing that you cannot ever do, though, is take for granted where and who you came from.