By Erin Fuhr, Gracie Fairfax and Paige Williams | Echo
When you study abroad, you learn through new experiences, meet new people and fall in love with a place like you never have before. Anyone who's had a study abroad experience can relate to some of these feelings that stay long after you've returned home.
1. You always crave foods that you can't get here.
Sometimes you get a midnight craving for some roasted pig from a street vendor, or some Lithuanian fried bread and cheese from a favorite restaurant. It's always depressing to know you might never be able to eat your favorite foods again
2. People have broken up, gotten together and married while you were gone.
Your former roommate's boyfriend is now her husband? These are the perils of life
3. The view from your bedroom window doesn't measure up to the one you had when you were abroad.
You don't realize how spoiled you were until you wake up in Upland to see a water tower, a fence and a parked car after you'd gotten used to the city of Cuenca spread out under the mountains.
4. You have no concept of money anymore; everything is either way more expensive or way cheaper here.
When you come home, you're either sad that you have to pay more than $1.50 for a loaf of bread, or you're rejoicing because you don't have to pay the equivalent of 12 American dollars for a combo meal at Mcdonalds. At least now you don't have to quickly convert prices in your head before every purchase.
5. Your style evolves a little based on where you were living.
Your time abroad might have influenced you to dress minimalistically, wear more scarves or constantly sport something woven out of alpaca wool. Regardless of where you went, your style probably changed a little when you got back.
6. You were really out of the loop with some pop culture when you came back to America.
You turned on the radio, thought "Rude" by Magic! was new and cool, and then got attacked for your opinion because that was the most overplayed and generally hated song in the entire country.
7. The great realization that you don't have to pay for water in restaurants in America.
There is nothing that says "welcome home" like a free glass of tap water at a restaurant. No more $3 glass bottles of water.
8. You figure out what it really means to be patriotic.
Touching down in America after being abroad is possibly the most glorious moment of your life. "God Bless America" will be sung.
9. Finally feeling you can communicate with other people without embarrassing yourself.
There's nothing that makes you feel more like a fish out of water than a language barrier and something you desperately need to communicate to someone. Coming back to America and not worrying about saying the wrong thing lifts a giant burden off your shoulders.
10. STARBS.
There's nothing like wrapping your hands around your favorite drink when you've been deprived of it for a long time. Admit it, the common white girl in you savored every drop of that precious Starbucks.
11. You realize that the whole campus kept going without you.
While you had adventures away, your friends had their own drives around the loop and midnight Love's runs without you. They missed you and you missed them, but now your friendships are a little different.
12. You're not special anymore.
In a foreign country, you stand out. You're "The American." You're cool and interesting. Once you come back to the states, you're an American like everyone else.
13. Coming back into mundane life is hard.
Abroad, your Facebook news feed is full of exciting pictures of your weekend in Italy and your cool new foreign friends. Upon return to Indiana, a trip to IHOP doesn't look quite as exotic.
14. You have to re-adjust to living on a small college campus in the middle of nowhere.
You spent several months away from the campus you knew and loved to live in a big city or a coastal town. Coming back to school is exciting at first, but then you miss your freedom and anonymity and the diversity of the place you were. You have to remember how to live in a place where everybody knows each other's business.
15. Sometimes it is hard to rebuild yourself after being independent.
You were a blank slate. Being away gave you the opportunity to reinvent yourself in a way, but when you get back, people often see you as who you were before you left. Now, it's up to you to show them the new you.
