Whether you are traveling abroad for a week or for three months, there are very finite things that you’ll miss while you’re away from home. After my six week study abroad experience, I have complied a list of the top ten things you will miss the most from America (this is my list, but I hope you can relate to a few things on this list).
10. Splitting the check at dinner
While this may seem like a dumb thing to be on a short list of very miss-able things, un-split checks are a huge headache. When you are out to dinner with eight plus people figuring out who owes what and who got what can take almost as long as the actual dinner. Also everyone has to pay in cash… exact cash. No one ever seems to have exact change. It’s always the same story, “Oh darn can you cover me I only have a fifty.”
9. The English language
Eventually you get used to everyone around you speaking a different language than you are used to hearing at home (depending where you are). Let me tell you, even if you are studying the language of the country you are in, every problem is magnified based on the simple fact that you do not know every single word in that language. Also social settings are twice as awkward because even if you do know every word in that foreign language, I can bet you don’t know all their slang. Slang makes learning languages and simply casually talking to people on the streets way harder.
8. Peanut butter
Oddly enough, peanut butter is not a thing basically anywhere outside the United States and it is near impossible to find it in any local grocery store. If you do find it at some specialty store, you have to be willing to pay triple for it. And when you’re missing home what is more satisfying than a good old peanut butter jelly sandwich.
7. Cell service
Unless you are willing to pay an arm and a leg for international cell service, you probably are surviving on Wi-Fi alone. Wi-Fi is not the most abundant service, so the only time you’ll actually be connected to civilization is at your apartment/hotel or the occasional restaurant. Now you’re thinking, wow what a first world problem. But when you are trying to coordinate a get together with people who don’t know the city and have no way to communicate is super hard.
6. Air conditioning
This again sounds very much like a first world problem, but try sleeping in a small stuffy room with one small window facing the street where the garbage is in 100 degree weather. In many foreign countries electricity is very expensive and fanning yourself with a piece of paper is free.
5. Hamburgers
Enough said…
4. Free water at restaurants
At any restaurant abroad, if you ask for water the waiter will bring you bottled water and then proceeds to charge you three dollars. That might be acceptable except there are no free refills. So unless you want to spend like ten bucks on water alone be prepared to ration that water like you are in the desert.
3. The dog… maybe the cat
There are so many dogs and cats walking around the streets of Europe, but they aren’t your dog and it is not acceptable to run up, kiss and hug a random strangers pet. It’s almost like a tease. Cute dogs are everywhere but you can’t touch them!
2. Family
No matter if you live with your family or have been on your own for a while, you are going to miss your family. They aren’t just down the hallway or across town they are an ocean away.
1. Boyfriend/Girlfriend/Significant other
As much of a strong, independent young human being you are, being apart from your significant other sucks. By the end of your experience abroad you feel stronger that you thrived apart, but you have that feeling of let’s never do that again. Distance only makes the heart grow fonder.
