psychology

As time in your study abroad destination passes, you grow more and more comfortable with your new city and all it has to offer. You understand your way around the various winding streets. You know the exact time it takes to walk to your favorite restaurant. You greet your neighbors by name and have become a regular at the local cafe down the street where the grinning boy behind the counter knows your order by heart and blows you kisses as you walk out the door. The sun is shining. The birds are singing, and this is all just a dream.

Reality is, as much as you try to fit in and become a "local," you will always be American. It's just a fact. Yes, you will learn much more about your abroad city and may even know a few civilians by name. Yes, you may become a regular at a local shop down the street, but you are honestly much more likely to get a blank stare than a kiss as the waiter struggles to understand your foreign accent and walks away shaking his head when you mistakenly say, "Me want cappuccino," in Italian. While I may have just crushed many of your dreams and aspirations, I also just knocked most of you back down to size. However, don't worry, because I'm about to pick you back up.

You see, you're American. When in a foreign country, almost everything we see and experience tells us this labeling is bad. The innumerable contemplations of our appearance or the subtle smirks at our accent or even the awe at seemingly ordinary aspects of this new world play some psychological trick to make us believe our true home and true culture are just not as glamorous.

Maybe they are right. We don't have architecture dating back to the years before Christ. We don't have some of the world's most famous artworks from the most renowned artists resting in our buildings. We don't even have the fattest country anymore, but we do have the good ol' red, white and blue. That's good enough for me.

Studying abroad is a complicated mix of emotions. It is full of excitement and adventure, but along with the package comes heartache and anticipation of its end. Crossing oceans and moving countries is an agreement to sell your life away. You walk foreign streets wearing your heart on your sleeve for months, pouring every ounce of yourself into making moments you will never forget. It is hard to leave pieces of your heart lying in a city 3,000 miles away where you may never venture again. However, that's part of the deal. It's the business of it all, the dirty little secret, because you have to come home.

On the other hand, there is a certain comfort and sweetness to finally coming home. After being so far away for so long, home is the one place where the thrill seeking adventurer and willful wanderer can come back to the one fixed reality. No matter where we go across the globe, it is always there, and as the customs agent looks you straight in the eye to say, "Welcome home," you'll never feel more proud and lucky. You belong.

Here is where the psychology comes in and where our complicated human emotions get so tangled we can't decipher any of them. Believe it or not, despite the many emotions you'll feel and the countless hours of processing your mind will undergo, this is one of those subjects you are most likely going to fail, because it just doesn't make sense. If you are like me, you will board that plane to come home with tears welling up in your eyes as you leave a place you have grown to love and adore. Then, hours later, you'll feel the drops running down your cheeks again, but this time they are out of pride as you stare up at the American flag hanging above your head in the airport welcoming you home.

I can't say where your heart will land. I cannot tell you if it will be sadder to leave or to come home, but I can tell you it will be hard either way. However, that is also the beauty of it all. It is the tell-tale sign you really lived and loved and went into the world with your eyes and ears wide open. You may fail at some things and barely pass at others, but if there is one subject you are a master at, it is the art of truly living.

So, welcome home. It's time to go back to real school now.

Class officially dismissed.

art history

I've never been much of an art history buff. Well, I've never been much of an art person in general. The closest creative bone I have in my body is solely for writing, and you've seen how poorly that can go for me sometimes. My brain just seems to work in words rather than images.

However, most of you studying abroad probably have a keen eye for art. Even if you're slightly interested in going abroad, then it's a helpful trait to possess. Art is one of the main aspects used to showcase just how special each individual city is and how many famous people once lived there. It is the key to bragging rights for places across the globe as each strives to prove how the most influential artist and the most well-known work is housed "right where you are standing." It's mind-boggling, I know, especially when you've heard it five hundred times before in ten other cities.

In every country you visit and in every city you stay in throughout that country, you will go on a walking tour at least once. It's inevitable. As sure as I am that the sun will rise in the morning, I am just as sure you will find yourself staring at buildings where dead famous people were born, streets where stars once walked and exact benches where a renowned artist envisioned his masterpiece.

You may be convincing yourself that you will surely not take a walking tour of every city you visit. However, I assure you that you will. Somehow or another, you will be coerced into following a pink umbrella through the streets of one of the most "wonderful" places in the world, because walking tours are the bread and butter of any populous area. They showoff the most distinguished aspects of the city and culture while highlighting the overall splendor of the glorious state. Not only do they promote the art and architecture, but they also make every person on the tour so hungry and so tired that they are forced to stop in a nearby cafe for water, sandwiches and an espresso shot for much-needed energy and a little boosting of the local economy.

This is where the history part comes into the equation. You've seen so much art and so many places where famous people did famous things and left famous landmarks, and it all begins to blend together in a swirl inside your head until you have your own masterpiece in the making right in your frontal lobe. Nothing else in the world seems to matter except food and sleep, and frankly, you're toast. You're history. No wonder there are so many dead people buried in this town! They never made it out of the walking tour!

I do not want to get carried away with myself. Walking tours are actually wonderful, because this is where you learn all of the information you need about art and history and the limits of the human body. While the street address of Michelangelo's childhood home may be useless information to your college roommate, it is what makes your study abroad city special, and it is what will endear you to your new home. Then, in twenty years, you will be able to walk that same street with your kids and point out that same house and tell them about how you and your friend were laughing at the tour guide's accent when she said, "Michelangelo lived there."

Who knows, maybe in twenty years after you cure cancer, solve world hunger or win the nobel peace prize they'll be pointing out your apartment and saying, "____ ____ once lived here."

It may be history, but it's your city's history, and now it's a part of your history. Revel in it. Embrace it, and try to remember at least one-sixteenth of it.

Class dismissed.

religion

There’s been a change of plans. Today there will be no more jokes and no more sarcasm. There’s just life, real life. With life, however, comes death.

You see, I just received news Tuesday one of my best friends from high school passed away in an accident. He was hiking in Switzerland with two of his friends when they decided to take a tram back down the mountain. Being the adventurer that he was, David wanted to hike the rest of the way and meet the group at the bottom. However, he never made it. Search and rescue parties scoured the terrain for two days looking for him, and on Tuesday, he was found. It is believed David fell and hit his head, and he passed away soon after.

When I heard David was missing, it didn’t seem real. I did not know exactly what to think or feel, so I just prayed instead. I prayed for guidance for the search team. I prayed for peace for his family. I prayed for protection over David and that the Lord would rescue him. Yet, in the midst of such a prayer, the Lord stopped me. “I have already rescued David. Though he may be missing now, I have found him. He never leaves my sight. Though it may seem hopeless now, he has already received from me a hope of heaven beyond compare. He is mine. He is my son. I have rescued him out of the pits of hell, and I have called him out of darkness into a glorious light both now and forever more.”

I didn’t learn to be religious while I was studying abroad. In fact, I went to a small Christian school from Kindergarten to Senior year, and it was painfully hard to keep my relationship with the Lord fruitful in a heavily Catholic and foreign society. However, I did learn about life. I learned about people, and I realized there is one universal quality across the globe. We are all looking for something. Everyone, whether Catholic or Islamic or French or Peruvian, we are all searching for something bigger and better to finally satisfy. Call it any type of religion you would like, but we are all worshipping something, and whether we like it or not, we dedicate our lives to the pursuit of that one thing we think will ultimately fulfill us. 

I made some truly unbelievable memories while I was abroad. I swam in the Mediterranean Sea. I rode ATV’s across a Grecian island. I jumped 300 feet into a canyon in Switzerland. That’s why we study abroad isn’t it? We go to see the world, to face those adventures and to feel those highs. However, if in the end all I am and all I become is dust, then what is the point? The answer is there isn’t a point to any of it without my religion. If my best, happiest and most memorable moment abroad is the happiest I’ll ever be, then that is a truly sad fate.

I was searching for adventure, and I got it. Reality says, however, we always have to come back down from the mountain. 

When I got home after receiving the news of David’s passing, I immediately opened my Bible, and it fell to Acts 13: 32-33. “We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers, he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. And it is written in the second Psalm, ‘You are my son; today I have become your Father.’” 

You see, there is good news. We have a promise, a promise that has already been fulfilled. Though it is a promise fulfilled through a death, it leads to eternal life through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. David knew, accepted, and joyfully lived in the revelation of this truth. His religion wasn’t about good things happening to good people, bad things happening to bad or vice versa. It was about God coming down in all of the chaos and confusion, all of the loneliness, all of the travels, all of the trips and falls and everything in between and standing beside us. It was about knowing that no matter what happens, good or bad, we need not be afraid, for the Lord our God is watching over us in the peaks and in the valleys. He has saved us through the life and death of his son, and he guides us by his spirit through this earth and into his loving arms in eternity.

What are we left with when the adventure ends? The answer without God is nothing, but with God we have everything. David wasn’t searching for adventure, because he already found what we all search for in dedicating his life to and living for the completion of the kingdom of God. He found satisfaction, peace, contentment and joy. He knew the greatest adventure of all awaited him beyond this earth and this life. 

It is hard to grasp. It is a lesson we will be learning and growing in until we leave this earth, because the world tells us so differently. The world tells us over and over to be prepared, for with life comes death. However, I also know with David in death comes a new and eternal life.

Class isn’t dismissed. The course has just begun.

geography

When applying for study abroad programs, many applicants cite their fascination with different cultures or their desire to step outside of their comfort zone as their reason for applying. But let's be honest, everyone just wants to travel.

The main reason students go abroad in the first place is to visit all of those places they see on Pinterest and then boast to all of their friends about it on Facebook. No one actually goes for the academics. The real secret, however, is how much you actually learn when you're not even trying to learn it.

Take geography for example.

By the end of your study abroad experience, you will be a master at both the ancient and modern wonders of the world. When you get home, all of your friends and teachers will be amazed at the extent of your new knowledge, but they do not have to know, however, exactly how you acquired such expertise.

You don't have to tell them that you can name all the regions of Italy because of your wine tasting class or that you know the current state of the Moroccan government because the guide of your camel ride tour carried an excessive number of guns.

You don't have to tell them that the reason you can cite the finest details about Leonardo da Vinci's painting "The Virgin with the Child with St. Anne" is only because you got lost in the Lourve and somehow kept ending up in front of it.

Here is a list of some of the top places to visit throughout the world:

• London
• Rome
• Barcelona
• The French Riviera
• Istanbul
• Beijing
• Berlin
• Buenos Aires
• Sydney
• Paris

However, I can assure you, wherever you go, it will surely be the experience of a lifetime. That is the beauty about studying abroad. Whether you are following a crowd of Asians in one of the most tourist populated cities in the world like Florence or dancing with a band of Greeks on the small island of Corfu, every destination is a new opportunity for adventure.

As proof, I have added a new page of pictures from my study abroad experience. If that does not inspire you to see the world, then I do not know what will. Check it out here.

My best advice? Live a little, learn a little and get out of town.

Class dismissed.

nutrition

Now that we know the importance of “playing the part” when studying abroad, it is only appropriate I explain the extent of what such a phrase means. We learned in high school to never give into peer pressure. “Don’t compare yourself to others,” they would say. “Everyone is different. You are special.” The truth is no one wants to stick out like a sore thumb, and we are constantly looking for ways to walk the walk, talk the talk, and dress the part. That can only mean, however, we must also eat like the locals...right?

The Essex Festival of Food and Drink begins Saturday with a “cookery theatre” featuring The Great British Bake Off’s star Paul Hollywood. Throughout the festival, guests can taste food from the experts, learn cooking tips and tricks and simply enjoy a foodie’s paradise. This sounds like any American student’s drug of choice, fresh cooked foreign food. It’s as addicting as heroin but with worse side effects. 

The peer pressure of selfish taste buds can be excruciating, but this is where that high school nonsense finally comes to good use. I urge you to stay above the influence of the world’s most addictive dishes. They will suck you in, take over your life and may become fatal.

Here is a list of the most high risk foods for American students across the globe:

• Italian pizza - This global phenomenon originated in the heart of southern Italy. As its popularity spread and its victims grew more numerous, the cheesy bread was adopted and perfected by both the central and northern regions of the country. When ordering this dish at a local restaurant, a single serving is the entire pizza. At first, you think you would never finish the whole thing. However, as the melted mozzarella enters your blood stream and the portions on your plate grow smaller and smaller, the reality of the situation begins to set in, you’re addicted. Feelings of guilt are often justified by the thin nature of the crust and the freshness of the ingredients. Reality is, however, statistics show 75% of Americans will feel the need for at least one of these Italian pizzas per day after the first tasting. Unfortunately, many will succumb to such risky desires.

• Mexican Champurrado - You know that childhood treat famous for warming souls across the world during chilly winter months? Well, that innocent Christmas hot chocolate takes a deadly turn in Mexico. Champurrado is a chocolate-based drink with corn flour added for thickness and tasty appeal. This creamy, chocolatey scrumptious delight puts the authentic X-rated spin on America’s watered down powder mix. Beware, it captures addicts with its harmless appearance but soon has its tasters reliving childhood dreams they may never want to escape.

• Indian Murgh Makhani - Also known as Butter Chicken, it is not difficult to understand the deadliness of this authentic Indian dish. While it’s origins are still debated, the spicy flare in this meal still classifies it as one of the top foods to be aware of while studying abroad. The “chicken” in its description could have unsuspecting restaurant goers believing they are ordering the lean, low fat meat. In reality, however, this dish is lightly fried and submerged into a fresh cream and tomato gravy that will have you slurping for more. Most fatalities involving Butter Chicken are most commonly related to an inability to handle traditional Indian spices.

Upon returning to the United States, most victims of these and other highly addictive foreign cuisines, suffer periods of intense withdrawal identified by the extensive sweating and substantial weight gain caused by substance abuse. If you suffer such symptoms, please consult your local fitness center for diet plans and exercise routines. 

Remember, you’ve been warned.

Class dismissed.

sociology

Human beings can be a rather complicated species. They are the conglomeration of experience, instinct, conscience, learning, culture and much much more.

However, it doesn’t take a $3,000 college course to tell you people are different. All it takes is a free stare down from Europe’s most elite and fashionable ten-year-old population to tell you there are drastic differences between cultures across the globe.

I know this blog has previously been about my expertise and you’re lack thereof. However, I would like to take this opportunity to provide a short anecdote explaining exactly how I became so knowledged in my cross-culture interactions.

If you do not know much about the European natives, here are two main tidbits for you. First, they are extremely thin without ever lifting a weight, going on a run or entering a gym. It’s quite sickening actually. Secondly, they all have a keen eye for fashion. When I say all, I mean ALL. From the elderly woman carrying her groceries to the little boy walking his dog down the cobblestone roads, they all look and appear their absolute best no matter the occasion. Nike shorts and oversized t-shirts are not an option in this part of the world. I know this may come as a major disappointment to you college ladies, but it will greatly behoove you to take my advice. Leave the sorority shirts at home.

Here is why...

It was the first sunny afternoon in Florence after a month of the worst rain the city had seen in years. Taking advantage of this beautiful day, I decided

to go for a run in a local park in order to

escape the confines of my tiny loft, which was located directly across from Michelangelo's David statue. Not to brag or anything. I put on my running pants and sweatshirt, laced up my tennis shoes and headed out the door. The second I walked out of my apartment, however, I began to notice the many stares looking me over and following my purple-lined nikes down the street. I could feel people contemplating my apparently preposterous look the entire time I was walking through the center of town. Even the large group of touring Asians stopped taking pictures of the Duomo to see what all the locals were staring at. If I counted correctly, I believe I received at least 247 up-downs, 43 smirks, 15 "I love you's" and was successfully in the background of at least 361 pictures, which will surely be seen on numerous home computers world wide and innumerable social media posts throughout the globe. Say cheese!

Therefore, to avoid my pure embarrassment and shame, take the time to understand your new culture before prancing through its streets like a soliciting prostitute. You will receive some greatly unwanted attention from the man cleaning the streets, the man swavely shooting his cappuccino at the bar or from any man in general for that matter. Not only will the men notice you, but the women will pierce you with their condemning eyes. I don’t know if judgement stares can kill, but I don’t want you to be the one to find out.

I have featured a video called, "Getting to Know the Local Culture When Studying Abroad." However, here is my advice...buy the right clothes and learn from the locals you meet, and you’ll be a sociology expert by the end of your study abroad experience. Who knows, you may just learn to appreciate them for who they are in their own non-t-shirt-wearing way. But don't worry, you'll always be American.

Class dismissed.    

communications

Sunday marked the final day for the world famous bull run in Pamplona, Spain, during the Fiesta de San Fermin, a festival renown for its dare-devil participants and thrill-seeking spectators.

If you are one of the brave few studying abroad in Spain during this time and one of the clinically insane for actually running with the bulls, then I salute you. Make us proud. My only hope is you have already mastered the art of communication and have learned the one vital phrase every study abroad student should know in his or her country, "Help!"

The "Help!" phrase would be necessary in such circumstances.

As we have already discussed, studying abroad is one complicated equation. It can also be, however, the solution to one of the gravest problems in our technology filled modern world, the problem of miscommunication.

While most of you probably know, some of you may not, so I am going to tell you anyway...English is not the only language in the world. This fact can be shocking to our Central American mindsets, but it is the cold truth. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate beforehand, the primary language of your abroad home.

If you are like me, however, and did not take the semester long college course or purchase the clearly not for college student priced Rosetta Stone, then here is your crash course. Pay attention.

The main few phrases you must, I repeat MUST, know in your host country's language are as follows:

• "Hello" and "Goodbye"- These are the classic greetings of both the ancient and modern world and everything in between. Even if you cannot say anything else, at least you can grace your company's presence with a pleasant greeting. Who knows, you may even have them believing you are a local for the first ten seconds. That is, of course, until you open your mouth again.
• "My name is ______." - Just so everyone will know you're American. Unless you have a name like Lesley or Brad. Then, you are a wildcard. 
• "Do you speak English?" - If not, you might as well pass them by. You will most likely never be friends.
• "Where is the nearest bathroom?" - This is one of the few universal aspects of humanity across cultures, so it will benefit you greatly in dire circumstances and limited resources. 
• "Dream on." - If you are a lady and feel like you are being stalked by every male figure you pass as they stare you up and down, cock an irritatingly smug smile or even holler a pitiful catch phrase like "I love you" or "Ciao Bella" as you walk down the street, then you know what I mean. 
• "I'm lost." - If there is one fact about studying abroad, it is this...you will get lost. At one point or another, you will all of a sudden find yourself wandering through a narrow cobblestone street and realize the one landmark you trained yourself to know is nowhere in sight. It is alright. Do not panic. Learn this phrase, and it will be fine.
• "I need to find ______." I realized shortly after the previous bullet point that it would not be actually useful without this phrase to follow it. Therefore, I take it back. Learn THIS phrase, and it will be fine.
• "Help!" - Finally, if all else fails. This phrase will surely bring an English speaking angel to save you from yourself.

You may have previously believed communication entailed the art of masterful writing, elegant speech and engaging hand gestures. However, the truth you will learn while studying abroad is there are only a handful of necessary tools spanning across cultures, religions, and intellectual capacities. They are the linking piece of humanity and your saving grace while traveling the globe. While dramatic, it is true. They are some of the fundamental phrases you learn in the first year or two of life, but while studying abroad, you simply learn what every English teacher never wanted to tell you. The rest is fluff. 

Class dismissed.