I suppose it *was* life changing.....

Well, I'm back in Spokane. I was gone for 8 days. Not exactly the two months I was planning on being away, but enough time to realize that this was the wrong time/place for an adventure. From the very beginning of this process (from when Northwestern cancalled their program and pawned me off on Arcadia) I have been only mildly excited and fairly to extremely scared. I always felt as though the people at the Arcadia offices were clueless. I mean, really, the first time I even felt like someone with the program cared or had a clue what was going on was the day before I left when I got an email from the area coordinator (Tina) with some information regarding the first day or two in Lecce. Once I arrived, they picked us up at the airport Friday and took us to an agriturismo (working farm + bed and breakfast + restaurant) called Casale Sombrino, as promised. It was an absolutely wonderful place (complete with a three hour dinner made entirely of foods grown or made on their farm) but there was still no sign of the program being organized. Saturday morning they talked with us for about 45 minutes without managing to say much of worth about what would be happening to us in the next few days/weeks. They took us into Lecce and dropped us off at our apartments, which were spread all over the city. If we wanted to, we could meet back up with everyone at 6:30 that night so they could help us shop for a few groceries and possibly buy international cell phones. By this time, though, I was already completely overwhelemed. I started having anxiety attacks the first night I was in Italy (at Casale Sombrino) and when I talked to one of the "advisors" on Saturday morning, she dismissed me as being homesick. She said they would make sure to check up on me a lot, but that was right when they were dropping us off at our apartments and leaving us on our own for the afternoon. Luckily, one of the other girls on the program (who went to high school with my Northwestern roommate.....small world) was extremely helpful. She hung out with me Saturday afternoon and evening (I was panicing whenever I was left alone), let me stay at her apartment Saturday night since my roommate was enjoying a night out on the town, helped me through the day Sunday (when the program left us completely by ourselves, contrary to the "I'll help you through this" promise) and talked me through my decision to go home Monday morning. Between my stressors at home before I left, never being fully excited to go on the trip, being plopped into the middle of a strongly Italian city where nobody spoke English with nothing more than a faulty map, still not knowing anything about the program, and feeling antipathy from the leaders of the program, I decided that Lecce was not the place for me to be. Monday morning when we were supposed to go to the school (which, of course, they hadn't so much as driven us past) to take a placement exam, I walked up to one of the leaders and told her that I needed to return to the states. Several people tried to convince me to stay, but my decision had been made. Why didn't they care that much over the weekend when I couldn't stop crying between panic attacks? If they were that concerned over my well-being, they shouldn't have left me alone in a strange city all weekend. Thank god for the friend that stood by my side. (Really, Sarah, thank you....). They finally helped me get to the train station and onto a train to Rome, because I couldn't do anything to change my plane tickets unless I was physically present at the Rome airport. I got to Rome Monday evening and was met by the woman who is in charge of all of Arcadia's programs in Italy. She took me to a wonderful dinner, got me settled into a cute little hotel, and told me someone from the office would pick me up the next morning (Tuesday) to go to the airport. Someone did pick me up and take me there, but US Airways wasn't able to get a flight out until Thursday morning. They took me back to my hotel, gave me a map of Rome and a few instructions, and left me on my own. Thankfully, I was more okay with this than when they did the same thing in Lecce. I know enough Italian to be able to take care of myself in Rome (and if I ever got flustered and couldn't remember how to say something, enough people speak English that it wasn't a big deal) and I was comforted that I was on my home. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday exploring Rome - I saw the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Vatican, and even a few random British Brass Bands that were marching around the Vatican.......random, huh? I think that Rome might have been a much better place for me to be studying, but hindsight is 20/20, right? Thursday I flew out of Rome to Philadelphia (my flight was delayed 2 1/2 hours) and from Philadelphia to Seattle (that flight had been delayed 2 hours). Because of all the delays, I knew in Philadelphia that I wouldn't make the connection in Seattle to catch my Seattle to Spokane flight. Even thought I speak the language in Seattle, I didn't want to be stranded overnight, so my dad drove to Seattle to meet me. He and I stayed Thursday night in a hotel in Issaquah (a Seattle suburb) and then drove home Friday morning. I slept 11 hours last night (Friday night) - it feels great to be home.

To answer a question that many people ask: yes, I will return to Europe someday. The Lecce part was pretty traumatizing, but I really enjoyed Rome. Lecce is a strange little place. It's kind of "Italy extract", I guess. Not at all like Rome or Florence where there are enough tourists wandering around that it shares a lot of characteristics with America. There was really nothing in Lecce that was familiar to me at all, and I had no support from those people who claimed to take care of me. I would love to go back for a vacation with friends or family to one of the larger cities, but I will probably never return to Lecce.

These recent events have really changed my life plans for the next few years. I will no longer be able to graduate from Northwestern in December since I have to finish the year of language that I would have done this summer. That puts a kink in the plans I had for nursing school and such, but no amount of planning and reorganizing could make me wish I had stayed in Italy. Remembering the anxiety attacks, continuous nausea, isolation, and everything else I endured for my few days in Italy is enough to get me through most anything now. It was simply the wrong place at the wrong time, and I'm willing to make as many life changes as I need to now that I'm safe at home.