A saying you will hear a lot after traveling is “all good things must come to an end” or “nothing great lasts forever”. The trip is over, and I will never see the CIMBA campus and its staff again. I will never eat in the cafeteria (with the amazing rolls and local made butter), drink the vending machine coffee, or dance with my friends after the formal dinner with multiple courses. While I agree with this statement to an extent, I am also here to refute it.
I see what everyone is saying. After a month of learning the Italian culture, experiencing the people, food, and language- it was a perfect month. The good thing that I experienced for a month did end. As I am sitting at home writing this, I am able to think back on all the experiences and my personal growth. We conquered the basics of the Italian language; messing with each other, saying phrases we learned in class back and forth and to the locals just to watch their faces light up at our attempt. We also conquered plane troubles from traveling from one country to another. Together, we learned the importance of teamwork and we made it back after this misdirection. We overcame the train station. Figuring out which terminal and what times is not for the weak. These are just some of the memories we have collected through the month abroad.
To reminisce, eating pasta or pizza every night for dinner as well as following it up with gelato will be missed. The new friends I made in classes like Italian where we could all bond over how bad we were at speaking the language (shoutout to my friends at the University of Iowa and Kentucky) will be missed. Taking trips to new places like Asolo and Bassano will be missed. The community of CIMBA will be missed and the message that we all come from different places, but we are all similar. So many memories compiled into one month that will last for a lifetime.
This is where my rebuttal comes in. While of course I agree that that period of time is over and we are now home or continuing to travel to different places, but I also think that these experiences can live on through you. Now we are simply the vessel of these memories instead of experiencing them ourselves. Now, I am able to share some of my favorite memories with my friends who didn’t attend or my family members. They ask me questions like “what was your favorite place” or “what was your favorite food you ate” and I can answer them fully. I also love when these recollections pop up in everyday conversation. I can’t remember everything from the trip, but when the small moments I forgot about pop up in an epiphany, it feels like a gift in itself, like it was waiting for the perfect moment to become mine again.
My point is that this “good thing” still lives inside of us; that is if we don’t want it to, it will never fully go away. It came to an end physically, but it will live in our hearts and minds (I should have given a cheesy warning). The new pictures from the trip I will put in frames will be more than just a picture. It will be the place I was in, the company I was with, the food I ate that night, and the environment around me. My appreciation towards this program and the people in it is tenfold. If you are thinking about studying abroad, you will experience a summer of a lifetime. Thankful for every croissant, lesson from Mickey, open windows, multiple course dinner and cheese and salami tray. A good thing that will never come to an end as we carry it on through each other and in our minds.