About a month ago, I was sitting by myself in a public park across from my Florence hotel in the crisp early fall evening, just people-watching and thinking.
Living abroad in a country where your understanding of the language is only beginner level on a good day automatically lends itself to introspection, especially when spending the weekend traveling alone in a foreign city with no company but your own thoughts.
Some people are afraid of traveling alone, and some people hate it, but I enjoy it once in awhile, as a way of stepping back from the collective group mindset and gaining surprising perspective on my own place in the world.
Sitting in that park after a day of traversing the streets of Italy’s Renaissance capital, my thoughts moved from the cultural masterpieces I had just seen to the cultural differences of which I was becoming more and more aware.
I accepted that I had moved from one bubble on the other side of the Atlantic, to a completely different type of bubble, here in Italy.
In the United States, we’re incessantly bombarded with political slant, biased news programs and, unfortunately, a propensity for our media to miss opportunities for insightful criticism and instead to delight in pointing out our nation’s mistakes, sometimes even inventing nonexistent ones.
In Italy, it is almost the exact opposite. I tend to live in a vacuum, maybe finding time once a week to read up on the latest presidential debates or another Chicago Cubs postseason collapse.
I’m still unable to understand what the locals are discussing on the street, in restaurants or at the bus stop. Living in a no-news zone can be frustrating and does keep me out of the loop on the nation’s current issues, but the freedom from a constant newsreel barrage has actually allowed me to see the United States in a much brighter light.
I’ve never been one to criticize politicos in power or the nation merely because the latest celebrity of the week thinks it is a good idea before. But with the excessively negative picture the media and certain politicians have painted since our current president took office almost seven years ago, it is startlingly easy to start singing the blues on America.
Over the last six months, I have had the opportunity to live in both Germany and Italy, and while I have established important friendships and relationships in these places that will last a lifetime, I have also realized, as cliché as it sounds, how lucky I am to carry a U.S. passport.
For example, in next year’s election I have the freedom to vote for individual candidates and split my ballot should I choose, unlike in Italy, where voters can only select specific parties who then, somehow, pick their nation’s leaders.
I can go back to SLU and have the freedom to change my major once a week, unlike in Germany, where the school system locks students into fixed, status-oriented career paths beginning in fourth grade.
Don’t get me wrong-I am neither blind nor uncritical to the grave situations our nation finds itself facing, and I realize that more and more countries in the world today can be called “lands of opportunity,” but at the same time, it was only after crossing an ocean that I began to get a fully fair and balanced appreciation of my own country and the individual freedoms it still stands for.
Looking back on that introspective autumn night in Florence nearly a month ago, I’ve recognized that I am blessed beyond belief to experience the world and enjoy the time of my life abroad at the ripe old age of 21, while still being able to return home and live the American Dream.
