When I returned home after my time abroad, the phrase I would soon be sick to hear was “tell me everything.” After the first two rounds of storytelling my experience abroad was summed up to a short 2-minute speech. It went something like this: 

“I went to Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia. It was super nice, and I loved it all! My favorite place was Bulgaria because it was absolutely beautiful, and all the people were so nice- it reminded me a bit like home. I am sad to be back and really want to plan another trip soon”

This speech would slow the person I was talking to down for a long enough time for me to breathe and then answer the next round of twenty questions. But after a week of this I thought that my experience can’t be condensed to saying it was super nice or I loved it. Sure, those things are all true, but I wanted more than the surface level conversations I kept having. I finally found myself in a conversation so interesting and fascinating at the strangest time. The middle of the freeway at 6 am on the way to Oregon with my sister. I couldn’t stop crying because my car was broken into that morning, but my sister was determined to change the mood. She began asking me questions about my trip that I hadn’t been asked before. She asked the differences in each culture and the thing I loved most about my experience that I don’t get at home. These types of questions made me think, and we talked about the weirdest things like bathrooms for an hour. One thing on the trip I had to get good at was using the squatty potty- something I definitely don’t miss at home. Going to the bathroom in a hole on the ground was an adjustment and I definitely feel spoiled with my toilets at home. We also talked a lot about food and meals and that got me thinking. While on a city tour in Greece we talked about how people often enjoy coffees for up to four hours. Now that seems ridiculous when you think about how we are at home. In the world of fast food and fast paced days, no one takes the time to stop and even digest their food. For me, it’s important to take the time to reflect and enjoy the days that go by so quickly. While abroad I didn’t even notice one drive through restaurant and meals were mean to take a few hours. This is something I love, I think eating shouldn’t seem like a chore. While on the trip I began to look forward to each meal and loved how long they lasted. It seemed like no one had sense of time and just truly paused life to enjoy good food and company. This is something in my daily life that I have been forcing my family and friends to implement because it’s not often we get an hour or two altogether. Four hours over coffee might sound ridiculous to some but I would love the opportunity to spend that time with a person I love and take in all the world has to offer. I began to use my meal times as a way to go more in depth of what my trip was like and talk about the small things because sometimes it could lead into the best conversations. 

A silent bus ride was always rare with our group, but one particular afternoon you could hear a pin drop on the ride home. Silent and saddened, I spent the time to reflect on the days unique experience and process all of the thoughts in my mind. With all of the tours and culture we were experiencing on our trip, sometimes it was easy to forget the people that lived there and what their experiences were. When we went to the War Childhood Museum in Sarajevo, it brought a lot of things into perspective for me. We had spent the day learning about the war in Bosnia and going to different cultural sites that go along with it. We discussed the bomb droppings and memorials created from it, a red coloring in where the bombs went off if three or more people died. The more we walked the city the more of these memorials I saw but I still couldn’t put things into perspective. We went to the war tunnel and walked through a portion and for some reason I could not connect to this. Feeling slightly uneasy and overwhelmed with different emotions we headed to our last stop. When we walked into the War Childhood Museum, I became overwhelmed with emotion. It could have been all the sights in one day right next to each other, but I connected. The first thing I saw was a collection of candy bar wrappers that a boy had during the war to trade with friends and to try to remember what it would taste like. Sweets were something not easily accessible during the war and so he held onto those wrappers as a sign of hope that he would be able to have chocolate again. This made me feel all sorts of feelings that I hadn’t felt on this trip before, I felt like I could begin to understand how it was really like. I don’t know if I will ever begin to fully understand what these children had to go through and all the troubles, they faced but I felt something different. I felt like everything we had seen just started to fit together like puzzle pieces. This moment defined a big part of my trip, it marked a spot where everything we were learning about clicked. That moment was filled with sadness and raw emotion which is what I needed to understand. I haven’t had to experience anything quite like they have in my life and I began to think what it was like for them. This made me really reflect on all the places we had been and really look at things through a much different lens. I needed to take away my personal lens and try to see things in the eyes of a local. This is such a difficult thing to do and often I find myself forgetting about anything outside my personal bubble. Suddenly my problems seemed to be so small and insignificant, and my daily annoyances didn’t seem so bad. I shifted my view to a worldly one rather than confined to my personal circle. It’s not a change that can happen overnight but something I have to remind myself of daily and it makes me appreciate everything life has to offer just a bit more. 

“You want to go where?” 

The moment those words flew out of my mom’s mouth I knew this was going to take a lot of convincing. Traveling without my family is a super rare occurrence and going all the way to Europe wasn’t my mom’s favorite idea. Maybe this was because it wasn’t a typical study abroad that she had heard of, five countries in less than a month seemed like a lot. So when I signed up for this trip, I knew it was going to be something I have never experienced before. Not only had I never been to Europe, but when I go on family vacations, we don’t do very much adventuring. My family is laid back and loves to enjoy the sunshine and so I knew I was in for a much different experience. The schedule was jam packed, different places each day. With my detail-oriented mind, I loved the structure I thought I was getting myself into. The amount of history and culture you take in at once is just amazing but also very overwhelming. The schedule we were supposed to be on seemed to be very incorrect and I found myself quickly drowning in the experience rather than enjoying it. In a phone call home, my mom reminded me of my goal for the trip- to go with the flow. Something I struggle with in my daily life is letting go and just going with whatever is happening. I need a plan, a list and specific times of everything going on in a day. This is good for a lot of things in life, like schoolwork. Now for a trip that seemed to be all about showing up? Not so much. I needed to start just showing up and being present and seeing what could happen from there. Now this is way easier said than done so I definitely needed coping mechanisms to release my stress. I found writing thoughts and feelings down in my phone on the bus ride back or talking with my peers helped to digest the information better. I found that laughing and sitting and enjoying the day rather than looking at the clock made things much more fun. By connecting with my group, I actually began to enjoy each day and thought they went by so fast. By jumping in to anything anyone was doing, I could see why people liked to travel this way. There were days where I really felt like doing nothing but went out and explored anyways. The long bus rides quickly turned to super short, and every tour we went on I found myself wanting to learn more. I started creating a list of questions I had to look up later. It sounds silly, but I wanted to know more about each experience and had questions that I didn’t think of while I was on the tour. I even found myself forgetting to take photos and videos which was a main part of my class curriculum because I was truly enjoying the experience. I had finally let go. In doing so, I felt closer to the people on the trip than to anyone I have met before because of what we were experiencing and how we were experiencing it. My go with the flow attitude quickly became part of me. When I came back from the trip, I think my family was surprised to see that I had gone with the flow and completed a shift in myself that I have wanted to do forever. I found myself constantly reminding my parents are friends one of the best pieces of advice my professor gave me- 99% of life is just about showing up.

If you know me at all, you know that I’m a picky eater. I’m talking super picky, like can’t go anywhere without looking up exactly what’s at a restaurant and hoping they have chicken tenders or plain butter noodles. It’s always a constant battle with my family, since I only like a few things, a few restaurants are the only ones we choose from. As I embarked on this journey with top ramen in my bag, I decided to make a promise to myself to be more adventurous. With this came saying yes and going with the flow. My perfectionist personality and plan oriented mind often times holds me back, so this trip I was determined to let go and go with the flow. Now this is easier said than done, but at least the world strides app had a detailed schedule of times and activities (which I soon would learn was false). The first night in Thessaloniki, I embarked on my very first adventure. Dinner. Jet lagged and feeling sick a group off us wandered into the town square and picked a random restaurant to try. Gone were the days of knowing what’s on the menu, especially since I can’t read Greek. Loads of appetizers started appearing and one by one it was soon discovered that I was only eating the bread. A chant erupted, and I got fed a piece of calamari, then immediately gagged it back up. But I tried it. I tried a food I would never have eaten if it wasn’t for a push from my peers. From the first night forward, I tried mostly everything that was offered to me. When I didn’t like things, I gagged them down. I found out my palate was quickly expanding, mainly because there never was mac and cheese on a menu. Things I normally stayed away from became my go to. Instead of plain butter noodles I ordered a new pasta dish each time. This may not seem like a big deal to some but for me it was a big step. On the food tour we took in Greece, I tried every food. In branching out and truly embracing the culture I realized that my fear of something I thought was so big really has been limiting my experiences. I think about times when I say no to going out to eat or trying a new restaurant because I’m scared of what the menu holds. I was limiting myself to my experiences because of food which to me now seems so silly. Sometimes to gain a new perspective all it takes is just being with people who push you to try new things. The perspective I gained on this trip will stay with me for the rest of my life and will impact my future decisions. Now when my family argues about where to eat it’s all about what we haven’t had and what I haven’t tried. Slowly I’m understanding what works for me and what I like to eat and not just what I am comfortable with.