There’s been some petty Gen-Z drama unfolding in a corner of the internet this week after an NYU student’s article complaining about her semester abroad in Florence, Italy, received backlash and criticism from many (justifiably) outraged Europeans.
It also triggered the knee-jerk reaction in several Modern Languages’ graduates, who rushed to their laptops to compose their love-letters to their own Year Abroad, in fierce retaliation to the NYU student.
One thing which baffles me about the piece in question is the remarkable lack of chaos in her semester abroad, which the headline (admittedly clickbait) claims she 'hated'. Part of the outrage is precisely because there doesn't seem to be anything for her to have worried about.
Where is the young attractive Austrian fireman entering the all-girls Catholic student dorm to check that ‘Frau Whitehead aus London’ is indeed quarantining?
Where is the manic running through the Bezirksamt as you try to file paperwork for a Daueraufenthaltsbescheinigung post-Brexit?
Where is the freak tornado that hits the south-eastern corner of the Czech Republic on the one week of your life you decide to take a train from Vienna to Katowice to get to your close friends’ Polish wedding?
Perhaps the total lack of chaos explains her ambivalent and indeed, negative, attitude towards her semester abroad. After all, it did make for some excellent blog content.
You might be relieved to read however that I have (just about) moved on from my Year Abroad in Vienna content, and it has to some extent been replaced by my most recent six-month stint in New York.
This brings me to the second point of amused bafflement: at times, the student’s experiences of Florence are not dissimilar to what I experienced in her home-campus.
‘Hostile, preposterous, and inconsiderate’? Certainly more likely to be adjectives I’d be using to describe the flat-hunting climate and process in New York, than my friend currently undertaking PhD research in Florentine archives would.
Indeed it seems so wonderful there that my parents even visited her and enjoyed a delicious meal together without me while I was in the Big Apple.
As I was scrolling through some drafts, I came across a list of things I would and wouldn’t miss about my time living in New York. It is an eclectic mix of places, people, and foodstuffs.
The list of things I would miss included:
Commuting into Grand Central Station (incredible main character energy)
Sending post from the UN Post Office
Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story telling me to ‘watch your step’ off every time I got off an escalator (more likely a generic American automated voice, straight out of Toy Story for me)
Taking trips out of New York
Everything bagels, Chick-fil-A sauces, and pre-peeled and diced fresh garlic (not all together, obviously).
The list of things I wouldn’t miss included:
The cost of hummus (and everything else, though hummus and yogurt are particularly grievous)
The roaches (fortunately no further incidents since the sighting and death-by-tsinelas of the first two in my first month) (Tsinelas is the Tagalog word for flip-flop; the preferred weapon of Filipina mothers)
The smells (see NY Times article, Marijuana: The Signature Olfactory Experience of New York - The New York Times (nytimes.com))
and
The Rats. I’m still not sure I’m over the care-free attitude of the rat moseying around the carriage on Subway Line 4 back up to Woodlawn one evening. NYC Sanitation Commissioner, Jessica Tisch, famously reminded the public at a press conference, “The rats are going to absolutely hate this announcement. But the rats don’t run this city, we do.” It’s a reassuring line which has become somewhat of a mantra for fearful Gen-Z in the city.
Comparing the list and scoring up the points doesn’t seem the right way to form a balanced opinion of one’s time abroad. And checking your bank account after six months in NYC most certainly won’t provide too positive of a balance either.
Living abroad inevitably brings its challenges, and no lark about the Continent or attempt to improve your spoken foreign language should ever be prioritised above your mental or physical well-being.
Indeed, I think it is easy to build up a romanticised idea of what your life abroad will look like, and expect every difficulty to dissipate into the Year-Abroad-Instagram-account sunset.
It can be disorienting to move away from your university friends who have been your support system, and into a culture which feels so different to your own.
Yet part of the whole pettiness of this drama lies within the fact that the NYU student is not making a case for improved support for students abroad (a serious case which needs to be made), but seems to expect her reader to bring out their tiny violin; she lists five other countries visited during her semester.
I’m sorry that Florence wasn’t all that it was cut out to be in her mind. New York wasn’t always everything I’d imagined it to be either.
But part of the charm of moving abroad comes in the chaos; in realising that the inconveniences were necessary stepping stones, in viewing cultural differences as endearing quirks, and in seeing that the things you won’t miss didn’t overshadow the faces, memories, and tastes of the things you will.