UChic Abroad: Internship in Italy

I reached my halfway point three days ago. I will be landing in the same terminal at San Francisco International Airport that I departed from two months ago at the end of the July. My concept of time feels muddy, fluid after living abroad for two months. As I anticipate the next two, I look back on the dozens of memories that dot my time here and sit confused. How can it feel like two months went by in three weeks but the day I arrived seem like four months ago? How can I possibly still await more amazing nights, tearful moments of nostalgia and lazy weekends strolling through the city?  

While studying abroad, you never anticipate saying goodbye. No, not bidding farewell to the city and friends on your last days, bidding farewell to those friends and roommates on a different schedule and finish their abroad experience before you. In the last three weeks, I have watched four dear friends meticulously repack their suitcases, struggle to reflect on their adaptation to a foreign culture and cry on my shoulders of the life they will leave behind. I watch them get into a taxi, saying bye to a slice of my identity here and walk home. 

I began my internship four weeks ago. As I write this, I am taking a train to Prato, a nearby Tuscan town filled with stereotypical Italian grandmas and outdoor cafés where the same men sit together everyday sipping coffee, talking. After a one-hour-and-fifteen-minute commute from Florence to Prato, home to where fashion icons Miuccia Prada, Vivienne Westwood and Roberto Cavalli purchase their fabrics, I arrive around 10:30 a.m. My day consists mostly of contacting PR firms in New York and London begging for information about the clothing giant or fashion name they represent. If someone chooses to oblige, I meet with my editor, the head of the company whom I mentioned before and still hardly communicate with because his Italian swirls together like a milkshake, and we decide if we have a potential article.  

I would highly recommend anyone thinking of pursuing an internship abroad for several reasons, the biggest one being that our generation will increasingly be met with more opportunities to collaborate with other countries in our careers. I feel like I am experiencing globalization firsthand everyday. In fact, even though I'm an American college student who struggles with my coworkers' native language, I have become an asset to the magazine. They write about the fashion, clothing and textiles industries and now they can explore those industries within the United States with a girl who can communicate clearly with American corporations. It's a niche they never have filled.  

Interning in an office with a foreign language has its drawbacks of course. The office jargon and small talk are hard to engage in, and the head of advertising comes down the hall with a task for me singing "Americana." But all in all, it's been…interesting.  

My older sister visits in two weeks, which will be surreal as we travel together and I revel in the goodness of seeing my own kin. When she leaves, it will already be time to write another study abroad column and my time left abroad will be a stark four weeks. I better eat all the gelato I can before then. 

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