I’ve met enough people who have studied abroad to know, offhand, a shortlist of the most common return symptoms: depression, anxiety, newfound fervor for social justice, scary addiction to British designer drugs.

I came back from Spain three weeks ago with none of these. Which is mostly a blessing, I guess, but also sort of a curse, because as far as I can tell, my interactions with other humanoids right now are supposed to involve lots of starry-eyed contemplation and patronizing explanation — because, I mean, I wouldn’t expect you to get it, or anything, seeing as you haven’t actually been there.

Mostly, though, I’ve stuck to single-word descriptors of the last four months: awesome, amazing, great, etc., which seem to fit the bill — or would, were I to invent a 20- (nay, 10-) second story of blissful, ephemeral Mediterranean romance. Which would hopefully also involve a beachside sunset and sangria — or maybe cava, Spanish champagne, to demonstrate the completeness of my cultural immersion.

It’s a problem I share with a good friend of mine, who’s just back from six months in India. No one really wants to hear her stories, either, lest they include bindis, the Taj Mahal or photo-ops with the cast of Slumdog Millionaire. (Or their probable on-screen stand-ins. Whatevs.)
Thing is, world wonder-/club-hopping gets to be kind of exhausting. The full, awful truth inevitably involves a lot of boring stuff, like learning that no one walks outside with their paper Starbucks cup and that most of the paella they give you is frozen and overpriced anyway. Bet that one made your jaw drop in envy.

Everyone’s collective stomach for the real awe-inspiring stuff tends to fill pretty fast, too. And I can’t blame ’em: spending three boozy months in a dorm in Paris with other UC students does not, actually, make you a connoisseur of French wine. It makes you insufferably annoying. (Also, a likely fellow lit major.)

There’s a difficult line to walk between airing your smug, bourgie worldliness and staying tight-lipped on your time away. It’s easy to find the appeal in the latter: decreased douchiness, fewer treasured acquaintances lost.

But some — maybe actual friends — will claim to want a full report. They will want to hear about the sights, the food, if his name was Alejandro or Fernando.

And, in truth, it’s hard to tell them. The strangest thing that no one seems to know about going abroad is that afterwards, when you have a suitcase of train tickets and museum passes and clothes that probably smell like cigarettes, there’s not really any other evidence that you’ve been gone.

You hear “please” and “thank you” and “excuse me” at the airport baggage claim, which all serve as a weird, unusually polite reintroduction to America. Maybe the next day you eat your first burrito in what feels like three lifetimes.

But then it’s all sort of normal again.

You get used to the good service at restaurants and carrying a coffee cup outside. The jet lag fades. No one looks at you funny for walking and eating breakfast at the same time. It’s life, and whatever precipitated it wasn’t.

Going back to school is stranger still. After months of alleged studying at a place where classes start 20 minutes late and open-book final exams dare to ask, “What is the protagonist’s name?”, it’s difficult to readjust to a place where failure and ADHD drug reliance are the norm.

It just calls for certain adjustments. Taking Spanish from a nice, perfectly capable grad student whose ancestors may well have sailed over on the Mayflower is a pretty obvious one, but there are also small, forgotten pleasures to behold: the proximity of the nation’s premier nude beach; the phrase “can you charge it to my student account?”.

Two weeks’ time has been distance enough to even make me wonder, in moments of bleary eyed sleeplessness, whether it all really happened. I guess it did.
(And, for what it’s worth, his name isn’t Alejandro.)