Coming back to your home after living 6 months abroad is... well, weird. Although it doesn’t seem like that long, a lot has happened within that time: I’ve changed. It’s an odd feeling: you’re still the same person your parents and your friends back home knew before you left... but there’s a part of you that just completely transformed.You learn so many things about life and yourself, so many things has happened to you... There’s a part of you that will never remain the same.
Think about it. You fly overseas for the very first time, to a continent you’ve only heard about, you move out of your parents’ home for the first time, you go to a completely foreign country whose culture is pretty much unknown AND you don’t speak either official languages. You’re alone in an environment completely different from anything you’ve ever known. That being said, you’d have to be as resourceful as you can, think fast on your feet, and get over that awkward feeling of asking for help. Finland has their own system for a lot of things so I had to learn pretty quickly. When I stopped by London on my way back, I just had the most odd feeling ever. I just felt that everything was so... easy. You wanted to ask for directions? Just ask anybody: EVERYONE speaks English. You can read signs and figure your way out no problem. This isn’t the case for, Finland. Although Turku is a university town, not everyone there speaks English, and pretty much everything is in Finnish. If you’re lucky some of it might be in Swedish and so you can more or less guess what they say. I’ve had to figure out what some signs mean, how to buy the vegetables in the grocery store, which street is where, etc. I’ve had to make educated guesses, fully develop my knowledge in semiotics as well as non-verbal communication. It can be quite exhausting, but once you’ve done it everyday for 6 months, you don’t notice it anymore, it just becomes automatic... So on my way back, both in London and Montreal, it was a weird feeling for me to be able to understand everything. So weird that it was hard for me not to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations because I understood everything.
Once I came back to Montreal, I guess I had a bit of a shock. After tasting 6 months of complete freedom, it was difficult for me to come back to my parents’ house and abide by their rules. It was difficult for me to know that I can’t be downtown in the middle of the night as often because Montreal’s commuting system kinda sucks. It was difficult for me to get back to a workaholic society who always seems pressed for time... Still, it was nice to come back to a city booming with arts and culture- surely, you must have heard about AT LEAST one of our festivals; and being somewhat of a foodie, I enjoyed getting variety on my palate once again, tasting authentic cuisines that were both local (i.e. poutines) and exotic (Korean).
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| Look at that miracle: I had a mango bingsu (left) and green tea bingsu (right). It's a Korean dessert. I think it's called "Shaved ice" in English. |
