Nostalgia and the Return to Greece

Let me introduce myself. I'm a Greek-American 20something who has been living in Greece the last 6 years. Like many Greeks born and raised in the US, my parents have instilled a sense of nostalgia for the homeland that I had never truly experienced. In other words, they were pouring their nostalgia and their own memories from Greece into me. So I grew up being a proud Greek girl among Americans and dreaming of the summers in Greece. Of course, one day I would move to Greece - that was taken for granted.

So that day comes. In the middle of my college studies, I transfer to an American college in Greece, wanting to taste the student life in the country where everything is relaxed and fun (I got this notion from spending summers here). The first year was a mixture of shock and awe at how the system is run here. I was now the American girl. Suddenly I had switched identities: in America I was the Greek girl and in Greece I was the American girl.

Life here is no longer what it was when my parents and grandparents lived here, and neither are the people. You learn to adapt. You learn to be less polite, more aggressive, and less gullible, because if you don't, you're the easiest prey to be taken advantage of. The most important thing that I learned living in Greece, is that nothing is really what it seems when it comes to education, jobs, and many times, people.

In the six years that I've been here I've grown as a person and learned to appreciate Greece and the Greeks for what they really are. I no longer have to rely on the black and white memories of my parents, because now I can talk about the problems and the good times that I've had here. No regrets. If anything, living as a Greek-American in America and then moving here on my own have provided me with an endless pool of funny/awkward stories. I see life from a different lens now...