* Boy, are we English-speakers a privileged species. I don't think I ever understood how lucky I was to be born in an English-speaking country until I realized that traveling abroad would be damn near impossible without knowledge of English.
* I also have a lot more sympathy for non-English speakers living in the U.S., and a lot less sympathy for the Americans who are assholes to them. Learning a new language is tough, and it is already incredibly alienating to be in a country where you often can't understand what's going on around you, without the added trouble of people being jerks about it.
* The best way to judge people and situations is on your own intuition; if it has served you well in the past, trust it. It often makes better decisions than straight, objective logic, and will definitely lead you to many more, diverse experiences and people.
* Physical health and good hospitals should never, never, NEVER be taken for granted.
* Being vegetarian abroad, while traveling, is a nightmare for one's physical health. I do not recommend it.
* I have developed a theory, upon observing the children of various cultures, that generally, the amount of discipline kids get corresponds with their level of maturity. There is probably a law of diminishing returns there, in that I certainly don't advocate tyranical parenting...but there is definitely something to be said for discipline. European kids are some of the most unruly, awful-to-be-around people I've ever come across, beginning with the teenage girls at our hostel during orientation back in August that sat down next to Ellen and me and began chanting taunts at us in Dutch for no apparent reason. Perhaps it's arrogant to say so, but I do feel like American kids are somewhat better (and conversations with Dutch folks often backed up this theory) because American parents just don't let their kids get away with the kind of stuff I saw happen all the time in Holland...and oi, when we went to Turkey, I met 12-year-olds with more maturity than the vast majority of twenty-somethings I go to school with, including myself!
* Age is pretty irrelevant when it comes to making connections with people. The five people in the Netherlands (other than my fellow American program-goers) I bonded with most were all in their thirties or older, and yet I felt hardly even aware at all of the age difference when we were actually hanging out.
* I think it's official - I am a type A personality, or at least I want so desperately to be one that I think I get an honorary membership card to the Type A Personality Club. I definitely thrive on being busy, and I'm the happiest when I have lots and lots to do from the moment I awake to the moment I sleep.
* The rest of the world doesn't hate Americans as much as I thought, but there is a general sense of loathing for the following aspects of our country:
- George W. Bush
- the fact that we don't really learn any other languages or extensive histories of other countries in school
- the hyperbole of our social habits (especially the tendency toward overfriendliness, emotional sentimentalism, etc.)
* With that said, upon further reflection, I've realized that the "overfriendliness" I had pegged as a facet of American culture is more specifically a facet of Midwestern American culture. This occurred to me as I tried desperately to make conversation with strangers upon my initial return to New York and found it surprisingly difficult. An enthusiastic "Hi, how are you?!!" to the airport personnel at JFK examining my boarding pass was met with silence and suspicious eyes. Contrastingly, once I got back to Kansan soil, I've struck up conversation with a zillion strangers, all of whom were beaming at me before I even opened my mouth, just as eager as me to forge connections and get to know the other people with whom they share their world. I've realized how ingrained that breed of Midwestern friendliness is in me, how much I miss it when I am away...it does make me question whether I'll be able to make it happily living on a coast, in a city...perhaps someday I will eat all my words about wanting to get out of Kansas and come back to the land of ad astra per aspera and settle down for a nice, homegrown Midwestern lifestyle :)
* With that said, I guess the ultimate lesson was this: You can never truly know yourself completely. Part of this is because we're all constantly changing, being affected by our experiences, adapting, learning, growing...especially at the age I am at now. But for all the things about myself and about my future that I felt so sure of before I went abroad...almost all were shaken up pretty well by these past five months. Some things may have been confirmed, but mostly, I learned that there is always more to be learned. And there's nothing like a foreign environment to get the gears of those lessons cranking.
* I guess I am more American than I realized. What a bummer, huh? I've spent so much of my adolescent angst developing the fine art of anti-American sentiment, rebelling against the grotesque massiveness of everything in this country, against the lens of arrogant superiority and partonization through which we seem to see the rest of the world...I still have problems with those things, of course, but it's no longer so simple. I can't chuck my own culture just because Europeans are better environmentalists, better eaters, better exercisers, better liberals than "my people" back here in America. The truth is, I feel home here in a way I'm not sure I wouldn't ever, living longterm anywhere else. I have all the more respect and sense of awe for my mother for having lived so much of her life out of her native comfort zone.
* It may not reflect on me all that well to admit the first two, but the three things whose absence dealt the roughest blows to my happiness while abroad were: prevalence of the English language, steady internet access, and, of course, the people I love. I must admit to intense relief upon recovering all three upon my return to the states. What can I conclude from this? The common thread between them, I'd say, is "human connection" - and if I didn't know it before, I know now - it's the single most important thing to me in life...feeling connected to others.
* Yes, everything in America is, on average, at least five times the size of things in other countries - whether it's our cars, our roads, our houses, our supermarkets, our food portions, our waistlines, our (mega)churches, our egos, our disregard for the environment, our national debt, our pricetags on higher education, the shortcomings of our healthcare system, there's no doubt about it. Despite the fact that this place is my home, and in many ways, I am relieved to be back on familiar turf, amongst a people with whom I can share genuine, mutual understanding...damn could we stand to learn a lot from the rest of the world! It's a shame it's so easy for us to stay inside our safe little American bubble of SUV's, Wal-Mart, and All-you-can-eat-buffets :/
* But okay, it's good to be back.
* However: once the novelty of being around other English speakers all the time wears off, I will undoubtedly realize just how deep the travel bug's teeth have sunk into my skin :) It's there, I can feel it already, and the list of places I now want to go is already miles long...
* The world is smaller than we think!
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