Home in 31-Hours

Hi everyone,

I hope you are safe, happy, and healthy! 

I am sad to say that I am no longer in Italy, but I am happy to say I am back home in Rochester, Minnesota with friends and family! 

After a 31-hour travel day and two lost bags, I finally made it home! Hopefully the same can be said about my bags soon.

Anyway, this extended travel day gave me lots and lots of opportunities to reflect upon my experience interning in Rome, Italy. I want to share with you some of what I thought about in my personal reflection. 

First and foremost, I am so incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to live and intern in Italy for the past four months. I had always wanted to go abroad, and my home University, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and IES Abroad made this incredible experience possible. And on top of making it possible, IES Abroad helped make my time in Europe an immensely positive experience and one that I will cherish forever and never forget. IES Abroad set me up with an internship I was genuinely interested in and gave me support in every aspect of life abroad. IES Abroad helped with my housing, my internship placement, my transportation needs and even put on extracurricular activities. I was able to participate in pasta-making classes, gelato making classes and I even got to try an escape room! All of these extracurriculars were not only fun and immersive to the Italian culture, but they also helped me be able to meet other students and make more friends.

And with these friends, I was able to explore Italy and other countries in Europe! I am happy about the friendships I made and I hope to stay in touch on Snapchat and Instagram with some of these friends!

I have already seen that most of my friends have also already made it to their homes and are adjusting back to life in the United States.

Now that I am home, I am stoked to be able to see my friends and family and excited to have comforts like driving my car, going to Target, and having access to heating and air conditioning. However, despite these positives, I genuinely already miss Europe and more specifically, Italy. 

I miss being surrounded by historical monuments and natural beauty every day. I miss being only a short train ride away from the sea. I miss going out for pasta or gelato or apertivo. I miss being surrounded by the unknown and finding unique ways to navigate a country that is still unfamiliar to me. There is so much that I miss about Italy, and I think these feelings won’t fade anytime soon. Interning and living in Italy changed my life for the better, and I know one day I will return. I tried to make the most of every opportunity I had in Italy and I have absolutely no regrets about my experience. I am just happy, thankful and blessed to have had the opportunity. 

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a fantastic day!

Ciao for Now! 

Andy Jacobs =) 

P.S. (I threw my coin in the Trevi Fountain, so if the legend is right, I’ll have to return to Rome someday!)