You hear the story all the time, usually in feel-good novels or the Chicken Soup series: adventurous traveler wanders far and wide, only to discover a preference for home. Dorothy clicks her red shoes together and repeats her favorite mantra. Yawn.
When I chose to study abroad in Spain the summer before my junior year of college, those stories weren’t the ones I had in mind. I kept hearing tales of the liberating abroad experience, of freedom found in anonymity and adoption of a less puritanical culture, the classic “time of your life” travel narrative. As the product of a middle class upbringing by well-meaning but mildly overprotective parents, I felt more than ready to cut loose in a faraway country. I was halfway through a liberal arts degree and eager to learn new things, not just about a foreign culture but about myself as well.
Always a much more dedicated student of literature in my own language than of basic conversation skills in a foreign one, I nevertheless signed on for a full-immersion program that would place me in the home of a Spanish family (and also, most conveniently, fulfill that last nagging foreign language requirement for graduation). I then spent months eagerly awaiting my grand adventure of a summer. Only on the plane to Madrid, trapped high above the Atlantic ocean, did the weight of spending three weeks in the home of complete strangers - strangers who spoke a language that I barely knew and who understood little to no English - really sink in. By the time I stepped off that plane, I began my European personal exploration process less with a sense of freedom than with a sense of freaked, and that feeling never really left me.
If the other students who had signed on for the program felt the way I did, they certainly hid it well. They seemed to shake culture shock from their shoulders with ease, every girl on the trip emerging triumphant from her chrysalis as she explored the wonders of Spanish food, Spanish nightclubs, Spanish men. Both during our few days in Madrid and our weeks in Oviedo, the northern city where we would take our language courses and live with our Spanish families, my fellow travelers absorbed as much as possible of everything Europe had to offer. I tried, and failed, to follow their example.
I wish I could tell you that I felt so miserable during those few weeks because my host family mistreated me, or because I hated the Spanish weather, or because the Spanish culture and environment disagreed with me. But my familia proved wonderful hosts, with saintly patience for my faltering attempts at communication in their native tongue. Oviedo, cradled in the lush green mountains of northern Spain, still ranks as the most beautiful city I have ever seen. But while I appreciated how lucky I was to be there, I couldn’t keep my mind from wandering back to my school in Atlanta, my friends and boyfriend there, my family, and even - of all places - my dorm room.
I wanted so badly to behave as I believed a college student studying abroad should. One night early in the trip I went out with my classmates to a famous nightclub in Madrid. We dressed up, ventured forth on the Metro and paid the equivalent of about $30 in cover charge to enter a world of flashing lights, techno music and impeccably fashionable Europeans. While my companions chattered in excitement and sipped their overpriced drinks, all I could muster was a sense that I’d fulfilled some requirement of an abroad experience. I wished with all my heart to have fun. Instead, I thought of the Thai restaurant in Midtown Atlanta where the owners knew my name. I did my time in that club for a half hour before telling the others that I wasn’t feeling well and leaving, head down. Riding the Metro back to my hotel room at one in the morning, surrounded by beautiful Spanish 20-somethings just now leaving to go out for the night, I could not have felt more out of my element.
The force and tenacity of my homesickness over the course of the trip stunned me. Where was my inner wild child, the courageous young woman who would have the time of her life and thrive on the challenge of navigating a foreign cul- ture? At the same time my fellow students were enjoying summer flings and scheduling weekend trips to run with the bulls in Pamplona, I spent god knows how much money on phone cards and internet café time, talking to my family and boyfriend back home. I eventually stopped giving excuses about why I didn’t want to go out at night - I just didn’t want to go out, and everyone learned to expect that from me. My colorful European alter-ego turned out be a deep shade of boring, with a splash of homesickness thrown in for good measure.
The loved ones who held my hand from thousands of miles away during those few weeks still don’t believe me when I protest that I didn’t hate Spain. I enjoyed the country’s rich culture, its warm people and sun. I just wanted to go home, where I had built a life for myself in which I felt I belonged. My uneasiness during that very long month had little to do with Spain and almost everything to do with me.
A few years later, partly to test that theory, I enrolled in a master’s degree program in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. I hoped England would be a gentler abroad experience than my Spain adventure - keeping the “culture” but minus the “shock” part. I signed up to live in a house I’d never seen, with people I’d never met and hopped on a plane. Foreign living, take two.
I loved living in Stratford. I adored the cobblestone streets and the Saturday market, the cozy pubs and the Tudor buildings. I still catch myself longing to sit under a willow tree by the river and watch the swans sail past. And yet, even as I appreciated and thoroughly enjoyed my time in that beloved English town, there was never any question in my mind about returning home to Atlanta after my year-long program had finished. Every night, I talked to my faraway boyfriend and said goodnight to a collage of photos of my family and college friends that hung above my bed. I did everything I could to hold on to the person I had become back home because, well, I rather liked that person. And just as when I returned from Spain, a glimpse of the Atlanta skyline from my plane’s window inspired a secret sigh of relief.
Those stories that I’d heard before beginning my travels weren’t wrong in the end. You certainly do discover things about yourself during time abroad… just not always the things you wanted to discover. As it turns out, I prefer to stay warm and snug inside my chrysalis. But I’m okay with that. It’s nice and comfy in here.
Kristin Hall did indeed return home to Atlanta, Georgia, where she now writes freelance while enjoying the heck out of her day job with the Atlanta Shakespeare Company at the Shakespeare Tavern playhouse.