I’ve officially been home for a week and a half and I think I’ve gotten over my jet lag. So far, I’ve gone to the beach, met up with some friends and spent way too much time watching tv. Although I am glad to be back in the States where there’s fresh air, real pizza, and fast Internet, I miss Shanghai. I miss the daily baozi, the struggle to understand the language, the convenient metro system, my friends and so much more. There were so many aspects of living in a city as interesting as Shanghai that I don’t have at home. With that, I also don’t have any of my study abroad friends around. I know they’re all having their own adventures in Thailand, Hong Kong, Australia and all around the US, but I still miss our daily meet-ups in the CIEE library and our weekend hangouts at Ellen’s. (Luckily, we still have WeChat to communicate.)
I know that I’ll see some friends again when I head back to Penn State but I am sad to be so far away from the others. Although these are the more depressing aspects of the end of studying abroad, I am still so happy and thankful to have had the opportunity to spend three months in China. In addition to improving my Chinese, I was able to learn more about China than I’ve ever known in my life and travel to places I’ve only dreamed of. I couldn’t be more appreciative of what I experienced and I can only start thinking about the next adventure.
As this is my last post as a blogger here, I hope you have enjoyed my posts about my adventure in China!