By Amber Wright
If you asked me how many places I’ve called “home,” I would say four – I grew up in California, now live in Washington, worked in Northern Ireland for a few months, and am now studying for four months in Italy. I’ve had to make a home where I am three times since I’ve left where I grew up, and each time my concept of home has changed.
When I first moved to Seattle, it was easy. My close friends in California had all moved, so it was generally painless for me to leave. I found all the things that made me feel comfortable and things that were familiar to me. I found my groove, and I made as many new friends from school as possible to surround myself with.
When I moved to Belfast, it wasn’t so easy. I was very secluded and separated from people where I lived, and the most familiar place I could go was Starbucks thirty minutes away. I hardly met anybody my age while working there and often spent days alone.
As excited as I was to be in Florence for a semester, I was nervous about moving to a new country again. With moving to Florence, I would be here longer and there was an added challenge of the language barrier in trying to make friends. How was I going to meet anybody? I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to make a home for myself here like I wasn’t able to in Belfast.
Three months later, Italy now feels like home just as much as Seattle does. When I first arrived, I had no idea what to do. I went the first week eating out every night and using a tee-shirt to dry off because I had no idea where a supermarket was or where I could buy a shower towel. Now, after traveling to amazing places like Germany, Croatia, and Spain, I get a sense of comfort, something I never got in Belfast, arriving at Santa Maria Novella Station, walking past the Duomo, and entering my apartment.
Italy has been very different from anywhere I’ve lived before, landscape, language, and climate-wise, but it has become normal and comfortable for me. However, this sense of comfort hasn’t come from knowing where to buy food or from decorating my room, it’s come from the community I’ve been lucky enough to form here. “Home is where the heart is,” “home is where your family is,” and my mother’s personal favorite, “home is where your momma is,” are popular phrases for a reason. Feeling at home is about the people surrounding and supporting you in that place, whether that be friends or family.
My study abroad program staff and the institution have done an excellent job of bringing students together and creating a community that people feel at home in. From taking day trips to having Thanksgiving dinner together, my program has become my family who I lean on for support.
The relationships you form over study abroad are quick and wild. You form friendships immediately because you all know you’re in the same position – a new country where you don’t know anybody. You go to dinner together that first night, then to Piazzale Michelangelo the next day, and then before you know it you’re exploring Florence with these friends every weekend. These friends will be the ones you climb to the top of the Duomo with and also get lost trying to find that one osteria in the far outskirts of city center. You’ll struggle though your Italian language class, and celebrate together when you have your first successful conversation with a local. You’ll discuss the culture you’re immersing yourself in, and also reminisce about the few things you miss about home. Finally, it’s three months later in December, still with two weeks to go, and you’re already crying thinking about leaving these people and leaving what and who has been home for the past few months.
Home isn’t a thing or a place, but a feeling that you get from the people by your side. My time here in Florence is intertwined with the people I spent it with, and I won’t be able to think about Europe without thinking of them. When I’ll look back on living in Italy and how much I felt at home here, it won’t be because of my apartment on Borgo Pinti. It will be because of the amazing friends and community I had surrounding me here making it feel like home.