At this time last year I was far, far away from here and thrilled about it to the point of near-delirium. What could inspire this sort of happiness, you ask? Well it’s simple, really.
For the first time in my short life I was out of this country for an extended period of time. Six weeks to be exact, during which time I roamed the city streets and country lanes of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England.
It is now my wish to impart to those reading this column the joys of a study abroad experience. There really is no way to adequately describe the ways it can change your life, but I’d like to take a stab at it.
Where do I start? What was the best part of my trip, anyway? Was it feeling as though I was in a place where so much had happened and so much living had been done during the course of thousands of years that the very spirit of these lives was palpable to me?
Was it seeing Eric Clapton’s summer home, walking past the apartment in Notting Hill where George Orwell lived and died and sitting in the room in Belfast where English and Northern Irish politicians signed the Good Friday Agreement in 1998?
Or was it simply that I packed up, got the hell out of Michigan and turned my back on the prospect of another summer spent at home in Ludington to seek my fortune elsewhere?
You may be nervous about leaving your family/friends/significant other for the duration of your program - which can stretch from less than a month to an entire school year - but seriously, do you want to spend your entire life refusing to experience anything new for fear it will disrupt your comfortable existence?
Let’s hope not.
Besides, I was completely freaked out before I flew to Dublin last May. How could I not be? I was flying to Europe with a group of people I hardly knew and didn’t have enough room to pack my beloved teddy bear. In the days leading up to our departure my mind raced through every worst-case scenario imaginable until I had essentially convinced myself that not only was our plane going to crash; but I wouldn’t make any friends, wouldn’t have any fun and would likely spend the entire trip racking up expensive long-distance charges during tearful calls to the folks back home.
Of course I was completely wrong in thinking for even a minute it wouldn’t be the most amazing experience of my entire life, and I knew this the moment I stepped off the plane at Dublin International Airport. The thought that I was in another country, several time zones away from good old Eastern Standard, was intoxicating.
The cab ride from the airport to the city center was a revelation, as were the accents of the driver and our tour guide. At last I was in Ireland, birthplace of many of my ancestors and site of so many tales I had heard and movies I had loved throughout my life.
Our weeks in Scotland were as rewarding as our initial European foray, although our appetite for nightlife was somewhat diminished. A three-day excursion to the Scottish highlands capped by a skinny-dip in the Loch Ness and a hike to the top of the William Wallace memorial more than satisfied my craving for natural beauty.
But let me tell you, there was nothing more depressing than walking by a Gap and seeing the exact same clothes in the windows I’d seen at Briarwood Mall in Ann Arbor before I left home, unless it was seeing at least as many Starbucks locations in London as there are in Chicago.
Other than that, London was as magical as the rest of the trip. Seeing St. Paul’s Cathedral looking as magnificent as it does in “Mary Poppins” and listening to the lunatics at Hyde Park’s speaker’s corner were highlights.
All in all I can say with resounding assurance that my trip to Europe last summer was the most wonderful experience of my life so far. There was never a day that I woke up wishing I was home, and once I did return to sweet home East Lansing I spent the rest of the summer trying to adjust to life as I’d always known it before.
It’s not that I don’t like East Lansing, because most days I do. It’s just that for a while I was living out dreams I’d had since I was a child, listening to my parents tell stories about their overseas escapades. Being thrust coldly back to reality on the wings of the Boeing 757 I flew back to the States in was a shocking experience, and one I’m still recovering from.
Despite the reverse-culture-shock phenomenon, I wholeheartedly recommend that everyone at MSU who has the chance to experience some study abroad do so.
You may end up like my traveling companions and me with books full of pictures, closets crammed with fun clothes you can’t get anywhere around here and heads overwhelmed by wonderful memories that won’t soon fade.
Maria Del Zoppo, State News opinion editor, can be reached at delzoppo@msu.edu.
