The sweetest reunion you'll have in your lifetime is with your study abroad friends. These are the people you didn't know until you landed in a totally new country with a suitcase and four months of possibility ahead of you. They were there when you learned amazing things about yourself while seeing all of those dreamy sights throughout Europe, and when you sipped limoncello at the cafe downstairs after a long day of classes. Yes, you've been missing them so much, but it won't be much longer until you see them again. When you reunite with your study abroad friends for the first time, a few things happen. It's truly the most memorable reunion you'll ever experience.
If you're anything like me, you probably think about your semester abroad on the reg. You can remember walking to class and grabbing a shot of espresso on the way. The weekend trips to other countries are engrained in your mind forever, and you get caught daydreaming about where you'll be next all the time.
Your love for traveling truly started with living in another country for a few months, and being able to call it home. Now, you don't think you'll ever be able to get enough of exploring the whole wide world. Lucky for you, though, your study abroad friends totally get it. You'll reunite and talk solely about all the wanderlust you've had lately. Not to mention, these seven things will totally happen, too.
During your semester abroad, you and your travel crew took thousands of pictures — and that's not even an exaggeration. Every weekend trip to a different country meant clearing your camera roll. Not to mention, every plate of food you ate required a snap before you could start digging in. So, when you reunite, you tend to go through all of those pictures. (Yes, every single one.)
Truth is, each photo comes with even more memories. You'll look at the ones from Cinque Terre and remember that intense hike you did in the heat of summer. From there, the stories start, and you basically relive your favorite semester of school.
With all of those pictures comes even more stories from your time being abroad. When you first got home, your friends and family wanted to hear everything. But, they didn't quite realize what that meant. You'd talk their ears off about the culture of Europe, and bring up that trip to Barcelona any chance you could get. You truly just missed being in a different country with your friends, and the people in your study abroad crew are seemingly the only ones who understand such a struggle to this day.
When you all reunite, you'll reminisce and finally be able to recap those moments that mean the world to you. Be ready, because there will be lots of laughs and probably some feels, too.
After living abroad for four or five months, you found your new favorite foods. Personally, I discovered that I love seafood pasta, while my friends now have an intimate relationship with Nutella.
Coming home, you knew that you'd miss the gelato or the fish and chips the most. So, you've been trying your best to recreate them, despite the fact that it's never quite the same. Your study abroad friends understand this need to find some similar flavors. When you all reunite, you'll likely pick up that brand of wine that is magically in America, too. You'll try and prepare some scones, or at least a sub-par panini. Bon appétit!
The wildest thing you'll come to realize when you reunite with your friends from study abroad is that you've only ever seen each other in a different country. If you're lucky, you may have seen a few in the crew in the airport when you were headed home. But, odds are, you met some of your best friends in that city abroad, and then you all parted ways before hopping back over the pond.
To this day, I still haven't seen some of my closest friends from my semester in Italy, in anywhere but that country that we came to call home. In some ways, I like that we have this city in common. Not to mention, it's a pretty cool place to meet up — don't you think?
You tried your best when you were studying abroad to pick up on the local language. You desperately wanted to have conversations with the man who owned the panini shop purely in Italian, and would still love to be bilingual one day. Now that you've been home for a bit, you've lost some of the vocabulary. But, you and your crew still manage to throw some of your favorite words into casual conversation.
When you reunite, you'll all be trying to speak Spanish like you're back in Barcelona. If you tried this with anyone else, they just wouldn't get it. To say the least, this reunion is sweeter than most.
The true feelings come out when you reunite with your friends from studying abroad. At the time, everybody seemed to be having an amazing time. You kind of kept your homesickness to yourself, and didn't quite speak up when you were nervous about making friends in the first place. Truth is, the first time you're in a new country can absolutely be overwhelming, until you get adjusted to the city you get to call home.
During your reunion, it will be revealed that basically everyone dealt with culture shock at some point. The besties who seemed like they weren't even phased by being away from home for so long were actually texting their families as much as possible. See, you weren't the only one with such feels!
Now that you're back from being abroad, your wanderlust is so real. In fact, from the second you got off the plane back in America, you wanted to travel again. The hardest part is probably picking the destination.
You'd love to travel like a blogger, and go to surreal places like Bali or Tulum. Maybe you'll even go back to your study abroad city and explore even more. Despite the fact that you were there for an entire semester, you still missed out on some sweet spots. Your friends from study abroad will be the best travel buddies going forward, and you'll likely spend your reunion planning at least one trip to take all together.
