The final step of a study-abroad is returning home. While you know the date is circled on the calendar before you even board the plane from Canada, it still sneaks up on you, and even if you are only abroad for a semester, you will find yourself homesick for a place you have only known for five months.
A semester is really only enough time to get yourself settled, find a good group of friends, get a handle on your classes and see Europe. It is over before you have really gotten into the groove of life in a foreign country, which is probably the main challenge of leaving.
While I only did a semester abroad, I don’t imagine staying the whole year would make the departure any easier. While you may have come full circle— having first been homesick, then gotten settled, and now be homesick again after your eight-month absence — leaving your new home and new friends will be even more hard as a result of the extra time given to those connections.
I have been back for a month, so most of the shock of returning home is gone but there are a few stark contrasts between life in France and life in Canada that become apparent when you return home. I have found that I miss planning the next weekend train trip and that Ottawa is a big city, especially compared to Grenoble.
I have also found that I want to keep up my biking lifestyle, but Ottawa doesn’t have convenient bike-and-bus-only lanes. Ottawa also has hills, which Grenoble did not. As a result, I am under-prepared for biking in Ottawa.
Furthermore, I miss trams. This sleek,speedy way of maneuvering downtown is sadly missed.
This is just general home-away-from-home sickness, but even some of my habits have changed. Every time I reach the check-out line at the grocery store I realize I didn’t weigh my produce and get the scanner sticker, and then I realize that our grocery stories don’t have this system. They do it differently in France, but I got used to those differences. Now I have to get un-used to them.
I still find myself expecting things to be closed on Sundays, but the bonus there is that I just sit back and relax on that day.
I am still not used to speaking English all the time and when I do hear French, I am shocked by the Quebec accent.
My last month in Europe was spent travelling, which meant for the first two weeks back I was very restless. I wanted to be on a train moving somewhere else every three days and every weekend I tried to convince my boyfriend to take me to the art museum, a common pastime for me during my travels.
Nevertheless, with time I get used to the differences and readjust to my life in Ottawa, although I am trying to maintain those good habits I picked up — like walking and biking everywhere, always shopping with a cloth bag, and saying “hi” to the people I pass in the stairwell. I have also been fortunate enough to skip the Canadian winter completely by the looks of things, which is one thing I am thankful I won’t have to get used to.