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| aaaaSure, I had been abroad before, but on just two occasions, both of them since beginning my college career at the worldly age of 18. The first time I ever left the country, in the middle of freshman year, I was with a large college tour group in Greece and Turkey. All our needs were taken care of, all our time decided for us, most of our meals provided. We moved en masse from the airport to the tour bus to the hotel to the sights and back to the tour bus, constantly under the watchful eye of our native Greek tour guide, Gina. There was no time to feel apprehensive about being in a foreign land, because we were always in a bubble of America. Even the afternoon or two we had to toole around on our own we spent in large American clusters, not even trying to interact with the locals beyond making some purchases at the Bazaar, content to stay in our bubble and only experience those places peripherally. The second time, during winter break of sophomore year, was also with this college tour group, this time in Morocco. Once again, we kept to ourselves, spent a lot of time playing cards and dozing on the bus between cities, and stuck like glue to our tour guide (who looked like Obe-wan Kenobe with sunglasses) as we wound through the narrow passageways of Marrakesh, Fez and Rabat. By the time we got to Casablanca, where our guide deemed it safe enough for us to venture forth on our own, we were so desperate for something familiar, | a | a |  |
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other than couscous, lamb and honey-saturated pastries to eat, that,
as soon as we had checked into our hotel, we migrated almost as one
to the Pizza Hut, as if pulled by some uncontrollable force towards
this mesmerizing beacon from the Motherland. aaaaI remember the night when my homesickness for America reached its pinnacle. I'd been in Paris for about a month, and, although I was having a pretty good time and school was going well, I still wasn't convinced I would stay past the end of the fall semester, so great was my desire to be back in my own familiar country again. On the night in question, I sat in my little rented room in the apartment of a French family and made a list of all the things I missed about America. If I recall correctly, Taco Bell was at the top of the list, and a majority of the other 15 or so items were also food-related. Other items included Seinfeld (the TV show, not the comedian), and David Letterman (about whom, incidentally, I wrote a series of haikus that year, manifesting both my devotion to and perhaps somewhat warped longing for this hilarious TV personality; separation definitely makes the heart grow fonder). aaaaI'm not sure how many hours I spent in my room that night, making that list and wallowing in my homesickness, but I do know that it was a pivotal moment in not only my year abroad, but also in my life. I realized, as I stared at my cathartic list, that I was never going to be happy living in Paris if all my energy was spent missing things from home. I suddenly understood that actively missing Taco Bell, peanut butter, root beer, and my favorite TV shows was not only futile, but was also a tremendous impediment to being able to enjoy the city and culture I had dreamed about for so long. Focusing on my homesickness only made it worse, and as long as I was consumed with it, I was not free to experience anything else. aaaaOnce I realized this, I made a vow to not make any more lists of things I missed about America. I put away the list I had just written, keeping it to serve later as a reminder of my epiphany. I suddenly felt very grown up. aaaaOver the next year, I still missed things about America. I still ate la vraie cuisine américaine at McDonald's more than I care to admit, and I am ashamed to confess that I watched way too many episodes of Baywatch, dubbed into French, simply because it was American television. Even so, I made a concerted effort to assimilate into the French way of life, to open myself fully to this unique opportunity I had been given to experience another culture and let it change me. aaaaWhen I came back to America almost a year later, I knew that I had indeed changed. I knew I would now be tempted to make a list of things I missed about France, and that I would always long for the fresh-baked baguettes, for the sidewalk cafes, for the old booksellers with their view of Notre Dam on the West Bank, for sight of sun sparkling on the Seine. I couldn't fully explain to others what I had experienced--nor why I wanted to eat Nutella with everything. That said, I also came home with a new love for the country I had always adored. It had taken a year of living in another place to make me see that America could not be boiled down to just food and television shows, to a political system, or series of holidays during the year. America, I realized, was an ideal, a way of life, a big, extended family trying to buoy up all its members. I realized that America was me. Knowing that, I was free to experience the richness of the world without the prohibitive homesickness I had felt those first few weeks in Paris, because the principles and traditions that make America great were inside me. And I knew that, like the good mother that she is, whenever I was ready to come back from my adventures abroad, America would always be there to welcome me home with open arms.
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was 20 years old when I went to live in Paris as an eager, yet also
somewhat timid and socially awkward, college student. For so many
years--since I had first read the Madeleine books as a child,
in fact--I had dreamed about Paris: quaint narrow streets, square
buildings with slate roofs and little scullery maid windows poking
out on top, open-air markets selling fresh fruits and vegetables,
boulangeries full of steaming baguettes, at least twelve different
cheeses in every food shop window, parks full of old men arguing
about philosophy and artists painting on their easels, couples walking
arm-in-arm across old stone bridges, or kissing in the shadow of
the Eiffel Tower. What could be more romantic than this city? Where
else could I absorb more fully art, literature and history in the
grand French cultural tradition? In short, what better way for a
French major to spend junior year than studying in Paris?
