The day I had been fearing finally came.

They always do. June 6 was to be a day of monumental change. I was going home, my life was over and another was to begin.

I stood in the brand new Malpensa International Airport outside of Milan watching Senegal play Denmark in the first round of the World Cup on a giant TV set up in a passenger lounge. I relished the last hours of my five months in Italy.

As I stood there watching people with no common language grunting at each other in an effort to cheer on a team, I realized how much I was going to miss. I guess I just like being international. There's nothing like watching people from all over the world pour out the same emotions over the same event on a TV to make you understand that all over the world we really are the same.

But there's also nothing that can burst your bubble like the voice coming over the loudspeaker saying your flight is delayed five hours due to an air traffic controller strike. The people may be the same but their cultures and ways of life are definitely not. For as much as I enjoyed and grew from my experience in Italy, I had never been so happy to be American as when I was abroad.

You could say that the whole time I was away I was in the "patriot" phase. I would look at the terribly inefficient public transportation, the common lack of regard for any kind of rule, the pickiness with food and fashion, and secretly think that America really had it all figured out.

Anytime someone was rude, anytime I was too big for the shower, or wasn't given enough to eat at a restaurant, I'd think "never in America."

"I would tell stories about the United States and answer people's questions about Sept. 11 and President Bush with such authority that one would have thought I was his best friend. I was a credible source to these people. I was the American, and to tell you the truth, I grew accustomed to my newfound authority, enjoyed it even.

I think that was what scared me most the day I had to leave. I thought back to my old friends. Would I come back to find them changed? Would they want to hear all my stories? It was a little nerve-wracking.

I came home to find out that I was the one that changed. I had gone from American patriot to America's "critic." I was appalled by the little things: how much water we use to flush a toilet, how much we eat, and believe it or not, how huge our showers really are.

So what can I conclude from my rambling? I think I've become more self-confident, more aware of world issues and the global impact of U.S. actions. Yet there is nothing profound about any of those realizations.

I recognize this was a life changing experience for me, but why? I really don't know how to put it into words. It's like asking someone to sum up his life in a few brief sentences; there's almost too much to process at once.

At the risk of sounding trite, I'm going to try anyway (and this is probably more for my own benefit than for the readers).

To put it simply, I learned that I don't know. People are the same, but they live differently. We all want to fit in, but we all want to be different. I learned that I don't really understand the world, and no one really does, and that it's okay as long as we all realize that and open ourselves to foreign ideas.

That's the best I can do.