What’s it’s like to live the summer of your dreams then go back to school… Spoiler alert: it’s MISERABLE!
I could blame this on my Sagittarius tendencies or the fact that I grew up in a small city or maybe watching The Lizzie McGuire movie on repeat finally caused the concept to sink in – but either way all I knew was that I needed to travel and ASAP!
After months of non-stop flight checks and countless YouTube searches, I finally made it happen – and all on my own. I booked a flight, I wiped my tears as I spent every penny in my bank account, then I started to pack (and obviously made a Pinterest board for inspiration). It would be my first time flying on a plane alone, and the last (and first time) I ever flew was 14 years ago – but I thought ‘sure let’s give this a shot’.
Speaking the truth, the days leading up to my departure, I was getting frantic – did I pack everything, would I be able to navigate the airport, what if they don’t speak English? But as soon as I landed in Italy – my home for the next two and a half months, I felt this wave of relief, and also a wave of exhaustion – s/o to the little boy who screamed in my ear all 9 hours of my flight!
For the next 83 days I was an au pair. I lived with the most charming and welcoming Italian family in the province of Genoa, who made my European experience 100x better. It was like I had a second family – ones who encouraged my gelato addiction without blinking an eye and taught me their beautiful language. ‘Mi Chiamo Vanessa’ – is about all I can say so don’t expect much….
(Leivi, Italy) Photo: Vanessa Geitz
As cliché as it sounds, I learned a lot about myself in the short time I was in Europe. I learned that being surrounded by tomatoes 24/7 does not have an impact on diminishing my fear of the fruit/vegetable and after three months it’s still possible to hate them. But, in addition I did learn more about myself and what I can and can’t do. It’s so easy in university to let the social and academic pressures make you feel like there is always too much and you aren’t capable of handling it. But, being out of school for 4 months, the stresses I was experiencing weren’t like anything I’ve had to deal with before. How do I tell this Italian train conductor the train was delayed and I missed my connection? Who knows how to navigate the narrow roads of Venice at night? All the concerns I had were entirely opposite to the struggles I experienced as a first year student.
But would I do it all over again? Heck Yes! And I would absolutely recommend the experience to ANYONE!
(Rome, Italy) Photo: Vanessa Geitz
BUT, now I’m back in Waterloo and the Fall term is in full swing. I’m 3 weeks behind, and there has only been two weeks of classes, and my textbooks cost more than my rent. It was a bit of a slap in the face to have such a quick turn around from a summer in Europe to fall in Waterloo. I didn’t even get to spend 24 hours at home packing my things or visiting with my family, before I was out the door again and driving up to the ‘Loo’. It’s been a real downgrade from riding vespas and hiking Swiss alps but it’s reality. I knew going into this experience how hard it would be to go back to being a student and I told myself I needed to prepare for the change.
Now that you are in the know of what I’ve been up to I can get to the point of this article, I went to Europe, now what?
My next plan is to:
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Finish school… eventually
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Save up as much money as I can and;
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Continue travelling the world (and taking pictures as I go)
I think that I may have caught the travel bug because now all I want to do is explore the world, and never look back. I can’t believe I went my entire life without leaving North America, but that also means that I have more to see! Now that the summer’s over, I have so many memories to share and look back on. Every day I catch myself remembering a detail of my trip.
To answer that ambiguous question of ‘now what?’ – I think I’m going to let the high of this summer crash so that I can fully take in my experiences and get cracking on those three goals. The next tricky question to answer is, where to next?
If you take one thing from this extremely frazzled, thought-spurring article it’s that you shouldn’t eat gelato everyday if you expect your pants to fit at the end of the summer. ALSO…. take risks and put yourself in situations that test who you think you are because maybe you will discover that there’s a lot more to yourself than you once believed. After a few months in Europe I feel like I changed so much, I’m tanner, a few pounds heavier, and, I’d like to think, a lot wiser!
Happy Fall Term Warriors! Study hard, travel harder?