I struggled a lot with writing this post: how to summarize six weeks that were some of the best, craziest, most phenomenal weeks of my life? How do I describe what it’s like to swap cities, families, languages, continents, and above all, cultures, in words short enough that others would be willing to read it, but long enough to capture my feelings about everything? And above all, how do I do it all without falling into the cliché of “study abroad changed me”?
In the end, what came to me was this: To study abroad, be it for six weeks or six months, is to make a home in a new place. It is to give yourself to the city, and ask the city to give parts of itself to you in return. It’s knowing your way around without needing a GPS, finding all the best restaurants in alleyways and down narrow streets, becoming a regular at that sandwich shop and claiming this pub as your own. It’s leaving a part of yourself behind at a million little places around the city and taking those places with you in the memories you make.
It’s a host family becoming a second family, a host home becoming a second home, and a study abroad cohort becoming some of the best friends you’ve ever met.
It’s when the city becomes familiar, when you return from a weekend trip thinking of it as home. It’s complaining about the tourists, as if you haven’t been there only a few weeks longer than they have. It’s having a favorite ice cream store, learning the slang, knowing how to get home from anywhere in the city, which restaurant has the best Thai food, the best pizza place in town, and which workers give you the student discount without even asking.
It’s claiming the city as yours and hoping it’s claimed you too.
So thank you, to everyone who made this program possible, to my incredible host family, to all the best friends I’ve made on this trip, and finally, to Arles, for letting me take a piece of you with me and leave a piece of myself behind with you.