I lived in Northern Italy sporadically throughout my life, mostly two months out of the year during the summertime. This is a place some people only dream of visiting, where a day trip to Switzerland is the cool thing to do, and where everyone is casually trilingual and spends most of their day pulling off a fashion trend that you won’t find in America until next season. It’s a place where the food is gourmet to those who visit, and standard to the many who cook it. The streets are paved with 16th century cobblestone, but no matter how hard you try, you’ll never see a native stumbling over in their perfectly Euro-trendy sneakers. A cafe or gelato bar is the local hangout, and it’s not uncommon to start an in-depth conversation about the finer points of shiraz with a total stranger.
Picture yourself where I just described. The weekend comes around and you decide to hop on a train and head north for a few hours. You’ve reached France, Spain, or Belgium, depending on which direction you took. You’re overwhelmed with everything from art museums, restaurants, and street performers. Most of what you’re noticing is new, exciting, and maybe even confusing. You find out the price to use a public restroom in Paris is one Euro, and what’s even stranger is the drinking age being only 18 in most of the countries you’re visiting. Some of the music you hear is still sung by a recognizable American artist, but all the while you can’t help but hear traditional instrumentation in the restaurants and bars. Your first trip overseas is nothing short of exciting, but are you prepared to spend a full semester there?
Now you’re probably wondering what the main point of this column is, and the simplest way to put it is the title: Culture Shock. If you’ve ever wanted to go abroad, are in the process of planning the trip, or even considering taking a vacation overseas, then this is the blog to consult. The majority of college students will end up going abroad or will have at least thought about it. However, most students make the decision to go without even preparing for it. My goal is to prepare all the Her Campus fans out there, step by step.
They call America a melting pot, but Europe is fine fondue; it’s classy (for the most part), twice as expensive, and at times more sophisticated than the average traveler had originally expected. There are two types of people who travel to Europe: those who stand around looking like a lost puppy, staring blankly at a map they bought at a Barnes and Noble back in the states, and then you have the culturally advanced traveler who knows what they’re doing every step of the way. They made sure to know the country’s conversational level of fluency before even purchasing the plane ticket, and the example they set for their own country of origin is nothing short of well-mannered and ambassador-esque. Traveling to a continent as diverse as Europe is not supposed to be a job or a chore, it’s supposed to be the best experience of your life with the exception of marriage or winning the lottery. I can guarantee that if you don’t prepare properly, it won’t be. Mind you, certain people take the experience for granted or go into it lightheartedly, but I can assure you it’s not to be taken lightly. My experience is somewhat biased because Milan was my home away from home for a good amount of summers, and for anyone who hasn’t been, that city means business; both in the literal sense and in the cutesy-expressive sense. The fashion capital of Europe (and the world in general) might be Paris, but Milan is definitely the PR and Marketing capital that feeds Paris the bread and butter it needs for survival. If Samantha Jones were a major European city, she’d be Milan. The city’s personality is more vibrant than any extroverted motivational speaker, and the scenery offers the perfect amalgamation of 17th century architecture and modernly progressive charm. Throw an iPhone at a gothic cathedral and you’ll understand what I mean. But it isn’t just Milan that offers all of these things; nearly every major city in Europe has something amazing to offer. It’s up to you to make the informed decision to explore it, and explore it properly.
To answer your question, the point of this column is to prepare all the savvy, culturally ambitious university students of America with the knowledge they’ll need to travel safely and effectively to a place they’ve never been before. Throughout the semester, I’ll be offering suggestions concerning what to wear, where to visit, a checklist of all the essentials to make your trip worth the five grand, and of course, the do’s and don’ts of acting as a university ambassador. This column is open to any and all suggestions or questions, so to all you Her Campus UCF fans, let me know what’s on your mind. If you’re thinking about going abroad, but still have that ‘fear of the unknown’ in the back of your mind, then comment with your thoughts. The average price of a plane ticket may be set at around a thousand dollars, but the memories you’re going to make are priceless.