chicago.

I have a confession to make. I have been leading a double life.

Life #1: perfect daughter, hilarious friend, great student and all around law abiding citizen.

Life #2: illegal immigrant.

Yes, I have seen what it is like on the otherside. I can relate to the millions of travelers who find themselves on the other side of the law. It’s a rough place my friends, but I have come through a stronger (more legal) person.

The situation is as follows. I decided to be difficult and greedy and make my life more complicated by choosing to study abroad not once, but twice. If I had any desire to make my life easy I could have done any of the following: studied abroad in the same place for two semesters, choose two cities in the same country to study in, or just wait until another school year to study abroad again. But no, I seem to live by the motto “suffering builds character” therefore I found myself with an expired Czech visa and nothing to show for my fast approaching stay in Italy.

I will, however, give myself a little credit and say that I did anticipate this issue and have been working to figure it out for the past ten months (since I knew I would be in both the Czech Republic and Italy). I contacted embassies, consulates, senators, advisers, directors and bothered my mother more than a million times.

I got to Italy no problem and settled in, although I felt like I was walking on egg shells every day. Once I informed the Dean of Students of my “situation” the wheels started turning for my return to the States.

My reaction…in three stages:

“WHAT AMERICA?!! NOOOOO!!”

“Ok, I just won’t tell anyone…”

“I can eat Chipotle and Panera!”

Weirdly, Loyola was not comfortable having a student living/studying illegally on their property–they get really picky about these things (because let’s be honest, the Italian government would not have figured it out until I had been back in the US for at least 3 months).

So. I came back to the US. I was really upset at first, not because of the money I had to spend on the flight, or the classes I would be missing, or the first calcio (soccer) game but more because I had made a commitment to myself that I wouldn’t be back in the US for 10 months. 10 months. I am stubborn and didn’t want to believe that I was going to have to suck it up, go home and figure this out.

Well, I sucked it up, I made my peace about it and realized two things.

1) I haven’t been home in 5 months, I would go home for 5 days and return to 4 more months in Europe, not too shabby.

2) I haven’t had Mexican food in a long, long time.

I didn’t want to tell very many people about the trip though, it was equal parts my embarrassment at the issue and my lack of desire to explain the situation over and over. Somehow that didn’t last long and through facebook, my mother and my inability to go incognito the cat was out of the bag. So, I embraced it and confused a lot of people.

As inconvenient as this trip seems, I don’t regret it. I got to go to Target, see friends, eat at delicious American chain restaurants, and most importantly I got a surprise visit from my mom and my favorite human being—Holly Jeannine!

I got my new student visa in 3 days (yeah, I don’t know where this process was when I originally applied) and then headed back to Rome.

You know, just another one of my international weekend trips–have I mentioned I’m looking into Cairo for the beginning of March? No big deal.