28/12/2017
Here we are again.
It's the eve of an other departure day, my luggage is next to me, ready to be filled again, my boarding pass is printed and in an hour I am going to say goodbye to my friends for the second and last time in 2017.
I came back home eight days ago but it might as well been a month. To be honest, the whole concept of time is a little bit messed up in my mind right now because when I talk to people I am always quite sure that I have been gone for something like six months, not only three (and a half). How is it possible that everything (or almost everything) stayed the same here? I can only see that I have been gone from new shops and restaurants around the city, because otherwise it might have been only a weekend.
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| The University of Coimbra, destination of our last trip of 2017 |
The first part of my Erasmus ended with a trip to Coimbra and Aveiro with my friends Alice and Andrea. It was a proper way to say goodbye to this country, one last trip before Christmas even if the sun and the warm temperatures were not really Christmas-like. As I was on the train on the way back to Lisbon I suddenly realized I missed my home there, a feeling that I got to know, on the next day, was shared with my flatmates because, when we said goodbye, we realized we were not only saying goodbye to each other but we were also saying goodbye to our home. Somehow, at some point, our student house in Lisbon had become our Portuguese home, and even if we are going to stay in touch and we will see each other again, it's never gonna be the same - and it's sad that it's over, but even good things come to an end and it's nice to have good memories. This feeling, at least for me, was strengthened the next day, when I landed in Milan and I didn't feel like I was coming home after a long trip, but as if I was just moving from one life to the other.
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| Aveiro and its typical channels and decorated boats |
As I told my relatives and my friends about my adventures in Lisbon (and the more I talked about them, the more it sounded like I lived in a badly-written episode of New Girl or, for the elders, Friends), it all seemed like a dream. I felt like I had come back one year older, whereas most of my friends hadn't even registered that it had already been three and half months since we said goodbye. They had been doing the same things, hanging out in the same places - and there's nothing wrong with it, I mean, I would've been doing the same if I were home; what I am trying to say is that being away from home really puts things into perspective, making you realize how much the perception of time can differ according to where you are, with whom and what you are doing, and it reminds you that you could be doing so much more, exploring more, challenging yourself more.
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| Random, out-of-context picture which I really like for no reason at all |
It is very difficult, if one has never been in such a situation, to understand how quickly and, at the same time, slowly the time goes by when you are on an exchange. I remember that, when I was in Australia, the first month had been the slowest and longest month of my life, whereas the second half of my experience flew away way too fast; the same happened this time, when the first ten days lasted as long as one month and the last two weeks went by as if they were only two days. I knew all this, when I was in Lisbon, and I tried to get the best out of it, but what I was not anticipating was that my time here in Italy, too, would've undergone the same rules.
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| Actual picture of me trying to find the meaning of life in a glass of wine, or "Erasmus Blues Are Starting to Kick In" |
Maybe it is because I had so many things planned, and the Christmas celebrations certainly helped too, or maybe it is because I knew that I would go back to Portugal very soon, but this week and a half was really fast and a whirlwind of emotions. Not that the past three months had been emotion-free, but I have been feeling a lot of contradictory emotions since I got back. I am happy to be home, of course, but I also kinda miss my Portuguese life and all the people I met there. As I showed my friends all the pictures I took in these months, I had the weird feeling that my Erasmus life was entering in my everyday's life, that the two were finally mixing up together and people from "now" were getting in my "before", enriching it and making it more colourful.
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| "If Sweden and Venice Had a Child, It Would Look Like This Town", Aveiro |
And how could I ever miss Lisbon when the first night I went out with my friends, in our best Erasmus tradition of someone losing their phone at least once when we go out, I lost my phone? I honestly felt like karma was messing with me when I looked for my phone all over my house and I couldn't find it (spoiler alert: we found it, next to my friend's car - at least we didn't have to call back Uber drivers or go all the way back to some bar). So here it is, something else from Erasmus life making its way in my everyday's life, like getting pictures of pirates saying "Ahoj!" (which should be the world for "hello" in Czech, but it sounds more like a pirate greeting you
Despite being back home, and despite knowing that I will be back in my other home soon, I can't help but feeling a little bit of saudade (or nostalgia, or call it whatever you want). It is like I am already grieving for the end of my Erasmus because when I am back everything will be different, won't it? Half of my friends won't be there all the time, and there is not going to be university everyday anymore. So on one hand I am not too excited of going back (I have this weird thing that I am never excited when I am about to start a new adventure), on the other hand I really miss my life there, even though I know it's gonna be different. It's like these ten days showed me what life after Erasmus is gonna be like, and if I knew before that it wasn't gonna be easy, now I know for sure it's gonna be difficult.
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| The Age of Discovery, Lisbon |
Anyway, enough with the sadness - there is still one more month to go and one never knows what life has in store for them! I am glad I got to write this post before leaving again and I think one more will come soon - I think this one is shorter than the previous post, so I am getting better at not rambling too much! Thank you to all those who read my blog the last time, I really wasn't expecting such a big response!
Beijinhos!
PS: I have the feeling this post is written in a very poor English, so if you spot any big mistake or error please let me know!
PPS: Sorry about all the sadness, I promise the next one will be lighter.
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