CU Abroad – Alexandra Lalos

“1301 Oakmont Road, Clarks Summit, PA,” I broadcast to my neighborhood comrades encircled nervously around the stop sign at the corner of Oakmont and Spyglass, waiting for Bus 20 to come rolling down the hill for its inaugural ride of the year.  Yes, I was kind of a twit at five years old showing off my rout memorization skills gained from some cut throat games of Memory Match; but that first day of kindergarten when Mom safety pinned my address to my backpack, I had it memorized right down to the zip code, a tricky task for a child this age. And while this scenario may be slightly skewed from the foggy memories of my first day of kindergarten, chances are, we all probably went to school that day and were asked to draw a picture of our house and the people who live in it with us. From the time we are this young (see photo of me chillin’ at home circa 1992), until the time that most of us leave home for college, the idea of home is very constant. It is the same place and people you leave every morning and come home to every night. No questions asked, it’s just home.

However, I’m here to attest that things get a little trickier when you start factoring in new roommates, new addresses, new states, new countries, etc. The idea of home becomes less constant, and in fact may be a constantly changing edifice, or simply not rely on the physicality of the building at all. Freshmen year, my  forced triple in High Rise 5 would have seemed more like Harry Potter’s closet under the stairs if it had not been for my two delightful roommates, but it could nonetheless never the be called home to me. Home was still the house I went home to every break. Sophomore year, my idea of home really started to change as I moved into my sorority house that was equipped with many of the comforts of home as well as the family-type environment, like evening dinners and T.V. nights that I had been missing in the dorm. To say I was “going home” at this point meant I was walking back from class on the phone with my Mom to pass the time before I got back to Alpha Phi. But as habit has it, I was uprooted again this summer, and again in August when my family so cruelly shipped me off to live in Italy for four months. Today, I’m pretty lucky to still have a place to go back to at the end of all of this that I can truly call home, but this whole process, and my fall break trip has given me some food for thought as to what qualifies a place as a home.

I think most would agree when asked about the reason for traveling that we visit new places to enrich ourselves and escape the normalcy of day to day life. This sense of escape usually results in a realization that “home is where the heart is” and maybe a little twinge of homesickness. Now, from someone my age with such a skewed vision of what is truly home, I’ve come to believe there can be multiple definitions of home. I have been in Florence, Italy for about eight weeks now. Naturally, this place has come to occupy the position of a secondary home to me (my house in Pennsylvania always being my primary home). By calling it home in Florence, I think fall break earns the right to be called a vacation, an escape from the normalcy of my life in Florence. So, at the crack of dawn last Friday morning, the shot gun start to our fall break trips began at staggered times as we exchanged hugs within the apartment trying not to wake the others who had a few hours of sleep left. By train, by plane, and a piedi (by foot), we arrived in Athens, Greece – to further confuse my idea of home.

My grandmother grew up in a neighborhood of Athens, which has since been rebuilt to accommodate the rapidly growing population, now near 4 million. My grandmother’s house was knocked down about ten years ago, and in its place an apartment high rise was built in which my family was given one of the apartments. This apartment, furnished by my grandparents during their annual trips back to Greece, has pictures of my sister, my cousin, my family, and I on the walls. Bringing my friends here this time was much different than coming with my family to Athens. When I come with my family, the sense home is my family, so the actual apartment space doesn’t make much difference. However, coming with my friends radically changed how I felt about the apartment in itself. It did feel like I was bringing my friends home to my house, to my family. In this moment, Athens was a second home. I slept in my bed, used my towels, and knew how to get around my neighborhood.

On our second day in Athens, my uncle Bob came to pick us up, and we went to his house to see my aunt, my cousins and their spouses, and my two brand new baby cousins.

Admittedly, I was soooo nervous to bring my roommates here. I love my family, but coming into a close knit Greek family as an outsider can be a very alarming experience, and I didn’t want my friends to feel awkward or like they would rather be doing something more fun. But, to my surprise, it ended up being my favorite day of the trip, and judging by my roommates’ expressions at lunch, one of theirs too. We went out for a huge, traditional Greek meal where I think my uncle ordered two of everything on the menu. Sitting there at that moment, I felt at home. And as we jetted off to Mykonos the next day, I was comforted by the fact that I would get one more night to sleep in “my bed” in Athens before we left.

It was about midnight in Amsterdam, two and a half hours later than we had expected to arrive thanks to kerfuffle in Paris, when my feelings of homesickness began to set in. As we trudged up the stairs which should more appropriately be called a ladder to our teeny tiny hotel room, I fell into that longing for my bed in Athens, my bed in Florence, or my bed in Pennsylvania. At this point, I’m not sure which home I was most in need of, but maybe this was the answer I had been contemplating about what makes a place a home. It clearly isn’t just somewhere to leave in the morning and come back to a night. It clearly isn’t somewhere with just a comfortable bed. I think it’s a place you are proud to share with your friend. It’s a place you look forward to going back to after a vacation. It’s a place that you know will always be there to go back to, even when you have been gone for months. I previously used the words “skewed vision of home” to describe my confusion as to what qualified as my real home and what I could currently call home in my life. But I would like to rephrase those words and say I have a broadened vision of home since being abroad and traveling.

Having the opportunity to travel Europe has been one of the most valuable experiences thus far in my life, and it has really helped to redefine to me the most important things in my life. Right now, I’m sitting in my room, freezing since our heat doesn’t go on until Monday, waiting for my roommates to return from Barcelona. Because, while I am home in Florence at my desk looking out my window at the familiar courtyard, I’m not there yet. I’m not home yet because everyone in this apartment who makes it feel like home isn’t here yet. The idea of home used to be so constant, but now it’s a constantly changing combination of factors, that when aligned, will always feel like home.

I promise another entry soon detailing the more exciting ventures of fall break, but I think it’s important in this blog and during the course of this semester, that I express my thoughts and feelings that wade outside of the pool of awestruck recounts of beautiful backdrops. Last night, I skyped with my family in PA as my sister was taking her senior homecoming photos. I was sitting on a chair in the living just like I would have been if I was actually there. It was awesome, and it reassured me that I am growing up and when I get back I may change a little bit, but everything will always be the same. More to come soon …