{"id":25925,"date":"2025-08-27T06:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T06:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/25925\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T06:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T06:37:10","slug":"pat-mccarry-what-trying-to-organise-my-20-year-j-1-reunion-taught-me-about-the-realities-of-friendship-in-your-40s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/25925\/","title":{"rendered":"Pat McCarry: What trying to organise my 20-year J-1 reunion taught me about the realities of friendship in your 40s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">\nOne writer recalls the fun of six J-1 students sharing a Chicago apartment, and what the group\u2019s plan to return to the city 20 years later taught him about the challenges \u2013 and the importance \u2013 of maintaining friendships amid the responsibilities of midlife\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"&quot;We knew return to Chicago would not happen soon; most of us needed to find jobs, some of us still lived with our parents. Meeting back there in 20 years\u2019 time though? Definitely.&quot; Image: Clare Meredith\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/mg Chicago_reunion.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">&#8220;We knew return to Chicago would not happen soon; most of us needed to find jobs, some of us still lived with our parents. Meeting back there in 20 years\u2019 time though? Definitely.&#8221; Image: Clare Meredith<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">I did my J-1 in Chicago at a time the Cubs were still cursed by the Billy Goat, French fries were \u2018freedom fries\u2019, Tom Brady and Kobe Bryant were the new sporting icons, and La R\u00e9sistance were the WWE\u2019s biggest villains.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">I was part of the college student droves that skittle into various cities, towns and resorts across America, each summer. I travelled to Chicago alone, with ER episodes and a barely touched Lonely Planet as the height of my research. USIT Travel put a hostel-full of us up for the first night, provided an orientation, then nudged us from the nest. I was hyper-friendly, extra-outgoing and fortunate enough to find six fellow students happy enough for me to sleep on an inflatable lilo in their back hall, in exchange for a share of the rent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One writer recalls the fun of six J-1 students sharing a Chicago apartment, and what the group\u2019s plan&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,117,19,17,4746],"class_list":{"0":"post-25925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-life-magazine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}