I studied abroad when I was a junior in college in Ortigia, Sicily. Ortigia is a small town, the old town center of Siracusa in southeastern Sicily. I spent over four months living and “studying” in this picturesque location. My program was smaller than the Duggar family of just 15 students. We all came to know one another, much like family. More often than not, it felt like we were on a reality show, 15 strangers living on a island. Will they survive? Ortigia was home and a little American family possessed it for a few months.
I went back to Ortigia for a week around this time last year. I was all by myself, but I had this urge to return to my second home. I arrived and nothing looked the same to me. Streets seemed whiter. My favorite gelato place was closed. New students occupied what was my school, or so I thought. I had this sensation that Ortigia was no longer mine.
I started thinking about this idea, that a place can be so personal to you and then all of a sudden feel like the most foreign of lands. I returned to my favorite pizzeria, thinking it would be the same. It was. The crazy fast moving Italian waiters were still throwing pizzas around. They even remembered me. Other shops I entered said to me, “Ritorni?” or “You return?”. Perhaps the only reason they remembered me is due to the fact that my flaming red hair used to be like an arrow pointing me out in a crowd. Sicilians are mainly dark in hair and skin color, in other words, the opposite of me.
Even though these places remembered me, I felt the actual setting of Ortigia did not. Ortigia was living in the present, and I was just a part of its past. The ruins of Temple of Apollo sit near Ortigia’s marketplace. Without a doubt, they are a part of Ortigia’s past as a thriving Greek port. Their remains serve as a part of Ortigia’s present. They will remain until erosion and the weather degrade them down to nothing, but the ruins still sit watching vendors selling their fruits. They live on in Ortigia, but I do not.
The following semester of my junior year, I studied in Florence. Florence may have been the polar opposite of Ortigia. My program was big and so too did the city feel. I returned to Florence this past summer, but it did not feel foreign to me. I felt a part of Florence, just as I did when I lived there. Why would I have the opposite reaction to Ortigia?
The only solution I can drum up may be the size of the two cities. In Florence, there is this constant influx of new tourists and travelers. Florence visually has changed very little since the Renaissance. Ortigia on the other hand is small. Locals note a new person on the island. You see the same faces every day. A little old man with a cane used to stand on my street just observing passersby. When I went back, I saw him again. I know he did not recognize me, but I experienced that thrill. Something was the same here. I just wasn’t it.
My dilemma with Ortigia presents that question I addressed in the title. Can you really go home again? If you have lived in another city, country, or studied abroad in a place for several months, and you went back to that place, did you feel that you were just a part of the setting’s past? That was my sensation in Sicily. I was antiquity and Ortigia was moving towards the space age. Just like the page in a history book, my presence there may not be forgotten, but the actually setting of Ortigia no longer feels like home.
My experience is that going back is far from the same. Last time I visited the small town I studied in, the coffee shop was the same, the shops were the same, the bars were the same, but I wasn’t. I’d moved along, seen more, lived more and while being back was nostalgic, it wasn’t enjoyable like I thought it would be.
So, no, you can’t go back 😉
I worked in London for 6 months and desperately want to go back but don’t know how it will be when I do. I feel like it won’t be the same if I’m not there with the friends I went with but I miss all the places I frequented and this post was great. It gave me a lot to think about.
Going home to my REAL home makes me feel disoriented…never really thought about going back to a place I lived temporarily. Interesting though.
Very glad to see a post on Sicily – it’s part of my heritage and I’ve often thought of going there. Anyway, on to your topic. Your experience during that semester created a definition of “home.” It’s a complicated mixture of people, places, events, and activities. When you returned, some of these elements were different, thereby violating your conception.
My thought: You can go back, but you can never be sure it will feel like how you remember, like home. My most recent post details this topic in the context of homesickness.
Going back somewhere after time apart is like getting together with an ex. It can be exciting for a bit and might even work out well for both of you, but it’s never how you remember it.
We definitely experienced that when returning to our home in Manchester, Uk after a year of travel. We had seen and done too much, and it just hadn´t changed. We couldn´t get used to it and so after a year being back there we´ve sold everything to travel indefinitely. We love being in new places constantly.
A really interesting read. Certainly living abroad is a unique experience, one that I’ve always said was life-altering for me. Your words struck many chords with me.
It seems like you were able to feel more at home returning to Florence than Ortigia because Ortigia is maybe harder to really penetrate. I would imagine it’s filled with people who have lived there a long time, whose families are from there, and is therefore harder to fully assimilate into (even if you felt totally at home while there). Florence, on the other hand, is like you said– full of people moving in and out, and it might be easier to feel at home later because it is not so hard to penetrate. Just an idea.
I had powerful experiences returning to the place where I lived abroad, and I am planning to write about them sometime. The last time I visited, which was 9 years after leaving, I finally felt more disconnected from it, and I was happy about that. I had needed to let go.
Thanks for another great piece of reading!
Thanks Suzy for the very interesting read. Come back to Siracusa while you’ll be everytime welcome here! 😉