The Great Lessons of Studying Abroad: The 17 Days of St. Patrick

They were pretty smart the way they organized it. They gave us all green  T-shirts that had the name of the program "Irish Way."

As I naively stumbled through O'Hare, I looked for others, like me, who wore one.

At 15, I hadn't realized that all of those people would be characters in what would become the experience of a lifetime. Some were to become my very best friends.

It was the summer of 1988, and I didn't even have my drivers license yet. Nearly 200 of us been selected through an application process of some sort. I remember writing that I played a little piano, a grammatical tanglement my mother found amusing.

A handful of us flew from Chicago to JFK. There we met a larger group of green shirts Dublin-bound.

The program included three weeks of study at Gormanston College, County Meath. Then two weeks of home stay with a family. That's when I stayed in Northern Ireland. Then another week of group travel.

That was over 20 years ago, and I am still very good friends with many people I met on both sides of the ocean. For example, the family I lived with then attended my wedding in Donegal in 2009. The brother is a priest and performed the ceremony.

Two of my best friends still today were classmates on this trip. Mary Fleischhacker (now Matz) is the daughter of Gill Fleischhacker, a retired battalion chief with the Chicago Fire Department. Her mom is a third shift ER nurse. She has five older brothers and four younger sisters. I have crashed on their floor more times then I care to count. With that many kids, a couple more didn't matter much.

Clare Tatarsky, the other hooligan, is from Madison, WI. Her late mother, Elizabeth, wrote in a Christmas card one year something like,  "One of the best things about children is the friends you meet because of them."

Because of my Irish Way experience, I have become an intrepid traveler. There were many occasions to practice this while Clare, Mary and I tried to stay in close touch throughout high school. Once, still 15, I approached my mom for approval of my itinerary.

I explained that I planned to walk from Joliet Central High to take the 3:05 Metra into the city. There, Mary would collect me. She and I would then take the L and a bus to Mary's house on the northwest side of Chicago. Her dad would take us to O'Hare where we hopped the Greyhound to Madison for the weekend. Clare's parents would pick us up at the bus station.

My mom was shocked. I had the trip so well planned, how could she say no? So away we went. The three of us arranged several visits like this over the next couple years.Mary and I always stayed in touch. Her mom and I still exchange letters, and I get Christmas cards from her brothers and sisters. Clare, on the other hand, disappeared when she went away to college out West. Then about 10 years later, I got a card from her. Her mom died suddenly, which understandably set her back a few notches.

So a couple months later when I won a trip through work, I called Clare. She was living in Washington State. She scraped together enough air fair to meet me in Rome. We hired a car and spent two weeks trying to learn how to speak kilometers. We nearly dropped the manual tranny on one of the Alps on our way to Paris. We traveled like our friendship never lost a beat.

Clare said that trip was like our personalities. I did most of the driving, fast and laughing. She held on for dear life trying not to puke.

My travels to Ireland and elsewhere have only made me a better person. It makes me a better mom, too. I have learned so much from these friends here and abroad. Whenever someone asks me if they should let their kids take an exchange program, I say unequivocally yes, absolutely, do not pass go.

We have so much to learn outside ourselves, as individuals and especially as Americans. What if Indiana spoke a different language? What if Iowa had a different currency? What if Wisconsin had a football team that actually deserved to be champions?

Another young student is going to study in Ireland just like the way I did. Shorewood's Dan Malloy had a lot to do with it. Not only is he the principal at Troy Shorewood Elementary, he is also the Scholarship Chair for the Irish American Society of County Will.

"Her name is Alyssa Breidigan, a senior from Lincoln Way North," he explained. "She will represent the IAS in the Irish Life Experience this summer well."

They have changed the program name and some of its details. Yet the essence remains the same. Alyssa, get ready. You are about to meet your new best friends.

If Ireland were to have the proverbial pot of gold at the end of each rainbow, I have certainly found mine.

To steal from Elizabeth Tatarsky, one of the best things about studying abroad is the friends we meet because of it.