I "Miss" Home

>>> just kidding I don't miss home at all<<<

My best friends and I put quotations around things we don't mean. Like when you say it's "fine", but we all know it's not fine.

 There are people and daily luxuries I do miss...

• I miss showers that don't get cold half way through, and I miss landlords and store clerks that can communicate in English because I need to replace the lightbulb in our bathroom. Now is when you laugh when you picture me trying to take a cold shower in the dark. 

• As I mentioned in a recent post, I miss peanut butter and football games. I miss singing Ay Ziggy Zoomba with those friends, and I miss lateral ellipticals at the rec center. 

• I miss credit cards that work like they're supposed to without denying everything as fraudulent, and I also miss having a mandatory meal plan I could never spend so my daily Starbuck's was paid for in 'monopoly money'.

• To be honest, I don't miss Springboro at all. Why would I miss my hometown when I wouldn't be there either way? I miss my parents a little bit, but I've been talking to them as much or more than usual anyway.... 

• I miss Honors Scholars; I miss the conversations we have, and the topics we explore. It's cool, though, how my friends here fill that void really well since everyone has such different perspectives and experiences all pooling together here.

• More than anything I miss the daily life with my best friends in Bowling Green. I miss waking up laughing because none of us know how we're going to accomplish the 10 extra tasks we should've have committed to accomplish in any given day. I miss running around like crazy because I love all of the organizations I'm involved in on campus, and all of the people who want to grab coffee and catch up. I miss spending my evenings studying for countless hours with my best friends until we fall asleep, and then waking up the next day to do it all over again.

  

  So, yeah, I do miss Starbuck's runs with these girls...

  

  ...and low quality pictures with this group of guys...

...and I miss the random American campus shenanigans...
But that's really about it.

How could I miss home too much, though?

Modern technology makes this whole experience so easy. I just got off the phone with Kelsey... It's 9am in America and 3pm here, so it's a convenient time for both of us to talk. For the next nine or so hours we'll all be awake, so if I want to snapchat or whatsapp message my friends or family from home, I can. 

Plus, for everything I miss, there are approximately 100 cool new foods/experiences/people here that can't have in America. Maybe I can have baguettes in America, but I don't think they'll be the same. In America, I can't take a bus to a nearby town in a different country to learn about the towns's history which includes a significant World War II bombing. The people definitely aren't the same either; people in America are lovely, but there are really exciting and significant differences in my relationships abroad.

I'm torn between feeling like this was years ago, and feeling like this way just yesterday all at the same time.

Want to know what I do miss? I miss the 34 days here that have already passed by...

• I miss the first time I met Francisca. I remember that vividly. I'm fairly confident she was wearing a black tank top, and I greeted her by awkwardly asking her if I could hug her.

• I (don't) miss the absurd amount of face-kiss-greetings I received during those first couple days, but I do miss laughing about it with Francisca when she could tell how uncomfortable I was. I've gotten to the point where I not only let people kiss my face without cringing (for the most part), but also I can understand and appreciate this polite gesture. 

• I miss spending the first week wandering to the park for lunch with the original "squad" while we'd just throw out questions like... "Wait, you never go to your classes?" Many European students answer "No, we don't." because they do all of their studying independently from the professors lectures.

• I also don't miss being helpless trying to communicate with our French landlord, and enlisting the help of Fraga, at the time a completely random other student, to translate while we tried to move in. Now, Fraga is a dear friend of mine.

 I could continue this list, and mentally I am reminiscing and continuing this list right now... but for the sake of brevity, I'm sure you get the point. In just one week, I have all of those dear memories... In a month, I have too many to mention... In my academic year, Strasbourg really will possess so much of my heart. I miss it already.

Strasbourg

I'm trying to think of more synonyms to express my happiness... bliss... joy... elation... to hop around I'll add 'falicidade', but I don't know if it works out of context like it could in English. Where's Team Portugal when I need them?

Love, Jules(about half of my friends here solely call me Jules)

"Wander with wonder and the whole world becomes home." -Tyler Knott Gregson

I cannot wait to add countless European cities
 to the list of cool places we've been together, Kels.

P.S. KELS IS COMING TO EUROPE OVER CHRISTMAS BREAK TOO!! (Thank you so much Melendez family for letting Kelsey leave for her semester abroad in Spain early, so we have this time together.) I'll have three of my best friends here over the break, and I cannot wait to traipse through Paris, Strasbourg, undecided-German-city, and Geneva with them.

P.S.S. FALL BREAK TRIP IS OFFICIALLY A THING. As soon as the credit card companies and Flixbus stop denying all of our cards, so we can book the last two legs of our trip. No matter what we're about 5/7th's booked so we're going. There are approximately 12 of us, and we're going October 21st-November 2nd. Here goes something.

1. STRASBOURG, FRANCE - PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
2. PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC - WARSAW, POLAND
3. WARSAW, POLAND - KRAKOW, POLAND
4. KRAKOW, POLAND - BUDAPEST, HUNGARY
5. BUDAPEST, HUNGARY - VIENNA, AUSTRIA
6. VIENNA, AUSTRIA - SALZBURG, AUSTRIA
7. SALZBURG, AUSTRIA - STRASBOURG, FRANCE