I\u2019m home. It feels strange to call any place other than my little apartment in Athens home now, but this is it. Coming back home has been difficult, moreso than adjusting to my home abroad was. Little things like going to the store and not bagging my own groceries, the severe lack of Greek food, and inability to walk anywhere I need to go serve as a constant reminder of how different my life was abroad. I miss walking to Kekko\u2019s each morning to get my coffee, stumbling upon ruins throughout the city and the and speaking Greek to anyone and everyone in my general area. I didn\u2019t realize how much I had come to love the culture and people I\u2019d come to know until this point. Needless to say, I\u2019m experiencing a heavy dose of culture shock that for some reason I didn\u2019t think would affect me. I think what makes leaving more difficult though is the uncertainty of it all. Here, back home with my family and friends I\u2019ve known for years, I was sure to return. Leaving Greece though, a country that I\u2019d come to love and appreciate immeasurably, I can\u2019t be sure that I will go back, and that, in a sense, makes it far more special that I had been able to experience such a way of life at all, but also far more heart breaking.<\/p>\n
When I first got back, readjusting was overwhelming. As time goes on though, I\u2019m incorporating some of the things I enjoyed in Greece into my daily routine. The last time I went out to eat with my family, we dined together taverna style, sharing different appetizers and main courses among the table, and they really enjoyed it. They, like I had, realized that eating in that way allows you to taste a variety of foods rather than just one, wastes less food (someone will want to finish what you won\u2019t) and it\u2019s noticeably cheaper. I\u2019ve continued my Greek lessons on my own and hope to make it my third language so that when I do return, which I plan on doing in the next year, I can speak in entire conversations with everyone I come across. For now, I\u2019ll be working as student coordinator of an organization that I love, the Democracy Project, and returning to tutoring my students. I know I\u2019ll continue to miss Greece and the many friends I made there, but I\u2019m also very grateful to be home with my family and friends from home. Senior year is sure to fly by between two senior theses, law school applications, and working, and before long hopefully I\u2019ll be visiting my favorite city again. Until then, I feel incredibly blessed to have had this experience, and grateful to Rollins for making it possible. Until next time, \u0398\u03b1 \u03b5\u03af\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03c9 \u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1, \u0395\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac\u03b4\u03b1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m home. It feels strange to call any place other than my little apartment in Athens home now, but this is it. Coming back home has been difficult, moreso than adjusting to my home abroad was. Little things like going to the store and not bagging my own groceries, the severe lack of Greek food,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-argentina"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16539,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4671\/revisions\/16539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}