17 Signs You’ve Just Returned From Studying Abroad

1. You’re having trouble relating to your friends who stayed back at school, and find yourself identifying much more with your cool new abroad friends. Nothing like traveling halfway across the world to become best friends with people who go to college 3 states away.

2. You’re not so much experiencing reverse culture shock as you are experiencing a disdain for doing actual schoolwork.

3. You’ve decided that your college is “a bubble,” and that people at your school are outrageously close-minded. (Of course, defining a large group of people with one vague blanket statement is a truly progressive way of thinking.)

4. If you haven’t yet turned 21, you’ve come to terms with the fact that this awkward period of time is gonna be some serious torture.

5. Going out isn’t as fun, because at your school there is no Kulør Bar.

6. Other people who have returned from abroad will say the same things as you. Rapt expression, misty eyed, implying that their experience was a thousand times better than yours. You don’t have the heart to tell them, but they’re dead wrong.

7. Seeing how other people live in other countries, you’re no longer sure if America is doing it right.

8. Most free time is spent re-living particularly memorable events from abroad. Like that time you hiked 10 miles 16 kilometers through the Australian wilderness, or took the overnight train to Oktoberfest with the Austrian guy who had a hook for a hand.

9. You’ve decided that you’re now an expert on travel, and find yourself sending obnoxiously long emails to underclassmen thinking about doing the same program as you.

10. With a semi-regularly frequency, you’ve begun to think that your prior life plan is complete bullshit; you’d be much happier if you just traveled for the rest of your days.

11. Your instagram game has taken a massive hit, from which it will probably never recover.

12. You’ve altered your appearance slightly (haircut, dress, tattoo) as to pay homage to the place you just returned from. You think it’s cool. Everyone else thinks it’s hilarious.

13. Most of your conversations are really just excuses to talk about that cheese shop in Florence.

14. 70% of your time consists of listening to playlists made up entirely of crucial songs from last semester.

15. You’re slowly coming to the realization that you’re not gonna have the funds to travel for a long time. This is a very sickening realization.

16. You’re already planning “abroad reunions,” still too giddy from the self-actualization excess to realize that there’s no way a forced meetup at a New York City bar will be as close to as fun as that time you all went clubbing in Barcelona.

17. You have absolutely no idea how you just went an entire semester without Netflix.