As she explores the Irish countryside with her new classmates and friends, Angela DeGennaro '28 keeps returning to the same thought –"I'm so grateful I get to do this."
The American accent gave Angela away pretty quickly, but before she spoke up, she seemed to blend in. Angela (above, middle) has wavy red hair and a fair complexion. If you didn't know better – and initially, her new friends didn't – you could easily imagine that the Rockland County native grew up on the Emerald Isle. This fall, she's studying at University College Cork (UCC) in Cork, Ireland, and has already made a tight group of friends and travel companions. On day one, she broke it to them...
"Nope, I'm not Irish. A lot of people think I am because of my hair. I told them I'm from New York. I'm actually Italian and Polish."
Angela clearly didn't pick Ireland to connect with her heritage. Instead, she was looking to explore an all-new culture, and UCC offered the education major the literature courses she wanted. Picking the right place for the right reasons won't, by itself, cure mild culture shock or homesickness. But friends can.
"The culture shock wasn't anything negative, but the differences took some getting used to. But I felt comfortable pretty quickly because of the group of friends I've made. We all got on the same app before we left for Ireland and started a group chat before we got here. It was really comforting having this built-in group of friends before I even left."
It also helped that Angela got involved in a lot all at once. She joined a few clubs, including ultimate frisbee, and she's been to pop-up events and trivia nights. And along with her friends, she's already started to explore. They visited the Titanic Museum in Cobh, which was the unsinkable ship's final port of call. They've also been to the beach and will check out Galway next. But as much as Angela is enjoying her semester away from Siena, she's always looking for a reason to talk about Siena.
"I have my Siena shirt and my Siena water bottle, so people ask me about it. I was telling someone about goat yoga just the other day!"
She knows Siena – and the goats – will be waiting for her when she gets back, but for now, she's soaking up every bit of Ireland she can.
"They have different sayings that I had to figure out. Like 'having a crack' means 'having fun.' It's little things like that. It's not the same everywhere you go."
But everywhere she goes, she's having a crack.
