First (and second) time living abroad
Since my first time writing a blog and the whole reason I created this site was because I’m about to embark on an overseas journey – yet again – I figured I would write my first post on my first and second times living overseas. So please go easy on me! It’s been a while since I’ve written like this and I can’t wait to get into it, so I guess without further ado, here is my story….
01.
Studying Abroad in 2014
If you already know me, you know that I don’t do anything half-assed. I’m either one extreme or the other. So for my first time living abroad, I guess it was like most – I wanted to study abroad in Europe. I was coming up on my final year in university and needed to finish my Italian minor. I found a program through the college that allowed me to finish my Italian minor overseas over the course of 2 months. But just going to Italy is too easy… I wanted to truly challenge myself to really learn the language my nonno and nonna spoke. So I chose Siena!
For those that don’t know, Siena is a small town just an hour bus ride from Florence, located in the Tuscan region. If you’ve heard of Italy’s three famous “Duomo” cathedrals, Siena was the first city to build one back in 1215. Unfortunately due to budget cuts and warring states, the cathedral was never finished. (You can find the other two duomo in Milan and Florence) Siena is also home to the famous Palio horse race dating back to the Middle Ages. Siena is divided into 17 contrade (neighborhoods) that all compete for the Palio (painting of the Madonna) on July 2nd and August 16th. VIVA PANTERA!
Ok, back to the reason why I chose this small city – other than when it’s time for the Palio – there are no tourists and most people mainly speak Italian only. The study abroad program had me living with a local family, so no matter if I was going to school, shopping, or eating dinner with my host family….I was forced to speak the local language. I truly appreciated this experience, because although it was hard at first, it made me almost fluent. I can still speak the language pretty good conversationally and I keep up my language skills by speaking to my relatives that still live over in Italy.
I always look back on this trip and all that I learned from it. It really pushed me to become more of an independent traveler and gave me the confidence to live abroad. After the study abroad trip ended, my mom came over and we extended and made a little Eurotrip out of it! I think I spent a total of 12 weeks overseas.
02.
China – 2015
Well of course as soon as I got back from this trip, I immediately started looking into how I could live abroad again – and fast! But I had to finish my degree in Marketing and my 3 minors in Italian, Chinese, and Southeast Asian Studies. I loved how well I learned the Italian language by living in Italy, I figured I needed to do the same if I truly wanted to learn Mandarin. So China it was! But where and how? I was graduating in December, 2014. I didn’t want to do another study abroad trip…oh I know! I’ll just work overseas!
This is why you get good grades in school kids! Because I was on the Dean’s List consistently in university, the Dean of the College of Business and I were close and when I proposed to her that I wanted to work overseas, she immediately jumped into action! We found a program that hired me as a social media intern and I went to language class twice a week after work.
At this point in my life, I had been to over 15 countries in North America and Europe, so I thought culture shock wasn’t really a thing….that was until I got to Beijing, China. I lived in Beijing for 4 months and discovered so much about myself and truly what “culture shock” means. Let me tell you, if there’s one major takeaway from this trip that I want to share with you all, it’s:
• be thankful for indoor plumbing, western toilets, and toilet paper. Who cares if there’s a tiny gap in the door? Be thankful there even is one!
If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion, and avoid the people, you’d be better staying at home
James Michener
I really love this quote, because it reminds me every time that I’m not home and I shouldn’t expect it to be the same. And so after getting over the *ahem* toilet situation…I had some truly incredible experiences in China!
After the internship ended, I spent the next two weeks exploring other cities in China like Sanya, Xi’an, and Shanghai. I visited all 4 parts of the Great Wall in Beijing, participated in tai chi with my neighbors in our local park, got to see what Lunar New Year and our New Year was like in another country, and of course challenge myself even further. With the language here, they don’t use latin-script alphabet and instead use characters to form their words. I almost had to learn two languages in one this time around. But that didn’t stop me from talking to the street food stall guy by my subway train stop everyday to order food and have a chat or from going to restaurants by myself and ordering from a menu completely in Chinese characters and fully being able to understand what they mean without pictures!
03.
What’s next
As I mentioned at the beginning, starting next week, I’ll be living once again in Italy, but this time in Milan! (Between you and me – it’s not one of my favorite cities in Italy, but I’m keeping an open mind) Stay tuned to see how this next chapter goes!
