Hitting the WaIl

Can't complain about that view though...

I left on September 4th for Europe. I first landed in Paris, France before getting to Berlin, Germany for my 10 day opening tour. Then we headed to Italy, where I've been studying abroad this semester.

Since I've been in Europe I've been back to Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Sweden, and Switzerland.

What do they all have in common? None of them have English as their main language. I'm sure everyone is going, "Well, duh!"

I hadn't really felt that dislike people said that I would about being in a foreign country for so long until now. But it's been almost close to three months since I've been in an English speaking country and I've finally reached the point where I miss it. Some of my classmates who have found temporary English reprieves in trips to Ireland, England or Scotland, I have not.

Yes, I can order coffee & food in Italian, along with knowing a few other phrases. Yes, hand motions are helpful when you don't know the world or can't understand what someone is trying to say. But that isn't nearly enough.

I've become frustrated that my grasp of Italian is elementary at best and while it's great to understand what people are saying to me because I can understand more than I can speak, it'd be even better to be able to form coherent answers in sentences. Even better are the times that I confuse Italian and Spanish.

For a month and a half I've been tutoring once a week at a place called Meeting Point, where middle school aged kids come to get help with homework. I wasn't told much about what I was going to do aside from help kids with their English homework. Totally doable right?

What I didn't know though, was that these kids knew little to no English, which was about as good as I know Italian. However it had been fine, even though I wasn't sure if the kids that I were helping fully understood what I was trying to explain to them.

Better yet was the past couple weeks no one has needed help with English homework, so I have been helping them with Spanish homework instead.

This past week though, as I helped a girl with her Spanish homework and wondered if she understood what I was trying to tell her about properly conjugating verbs I grew increasing frustrated. Not with her but just in general. Even worse was when a boy asked me for help with translating Italian sentences to Spanish but I needed to first translate them to English and he decided to get help from another tutor.

Everyone in the room was speaking Italian and I understood virtually none of it. None of them were really able to understand my English either. Not fun.

It's been so frustrating constantly wishing I could just be understood and not always struggling to find the words to express myself in another language.

I never expected to be fluent in Italian this being my first semester of taking it and having no prior experience with it outside of spaghetti, alfredo, etc. Nor did I think that everyone would speak English but after awhile it just sucks.

It probably doesn't help that it's the last three weeks of the semester, which always are the worst. Or that my family just came to visit, making me excited for Christmas.

But one thing is clear. I've definitely hit the wall.

That's not to say that I haven't loved Italy or traveling to all these different countries. It's been awesome and I don't regret any of it for one second. The cities, the sites, the food, the people have all been great, especially the food. I wish I could take the food back with me. Along with the espresso I have every day because I don't feel right without having one a day.

It's just the being lost in translation that sucks. 

And the exchange rate too.

I'm sure soon enough, I'll be home and wanting to be back in Europe. But I won't lie, a couch, sweats and sports that I don't have to wake up at 3 or 5 am to watch sound fantastic right about now.

But for now, I've got to get over this wall.