{"id":6409,"date":"2016-11-10T13:00:50","date_gmt":"2016-11-10T18:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/social.rollins.edu\/wpsites\/letters\/?p=6409"},"modified":"2019-07-17T18:29:33","modified_gmt":"2019-07-17T18:29:33","slug":"study-abroad-the-gray-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/2016\/11\/10\/study-abroad-the-gray-area\/","title":{"rendered":"Study Abroad: The Gray Area"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m at the halfway point in the semester where I’m feeling a lot of things about my abroad trip. Aix has become a home to me – not to the same extent as my home<\/em> home, but enough of a home where I can crave my bed even whilst gallivanting around metropolitan Scotland. I’m happy to be back from fall break, but my desire for home<\/em> home grows more and more every day. I miss random things I never would have considered missing before, like Dunkin Donuts, acorn squash soup, and constant Christmas commercialism. The things I knew I would miss, like Halloween vibes and Thanksgiving dinner and the leading-up-to-Christmas spirit press on me all the time. And my bed, my actual bed… I miss it most of all.<\/p>\n

The study abroad experience has gone differently than I thought it would, but in a good way. I didn’t think I would miss so much about my home as I do, but I’m glad that I miss even the most random things. Studying abroad is about discovering who you are and what you’re capable of, and I think I’m capable of multiple feelings. I miss apple cider and pumpkin pie, but I love that in a month’s time, Aix’s Christmas markets will be up and running, offering a magical, fantasy winter setting I would not be able to see in Orlando. I’m excited for my other upcoming travels with friends, but I wish I could just lay on my couch in my pajamas and watch Netflix for hours and hours, too. What I’m trying to get at is that the world is never a black-and-white place, and neither is the study abroad experience. It grows grayer all the time, with every pastry I eat and every cup of crappy French tea I drink (because coffee is disgusting anywhere you go).<\/p>\n

And I know that when I return home, I’ll end up missing those pastries just as I’m happy to sleep in my own bed for the first time in months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m at the halfway point in the semester where I’m feeling a lot of things about my abroad trip. Aix has become a home to me – not to the same extent as my home home, but enough of a home where I can crave my bed even whilst gallivanting around metropolitan Scotland. I’m happy to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":463,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-france-iau-college"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6409","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\/463"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15908,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6409\/revisions\/15908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}