ANZAC Day

As Americans celebrate Easter, Australians mourn and remember our fallen on ANZAC day.

“They shall grow not old,
As we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun
……And in the morning
We will remember them.”

Subjective Advice: Ways To Live Abroad

This is a real-life, unrehearsed, unscripted, [awkward] tour of my homestay apartment. Enjoy.

Homestay Tour

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Prospective study abroad students: a big question is what’s the best choice of living arrangement. Stay with a native family? Hunt down your own flat upon arrival?
Umbrella suggestion: it depends on what you want out of your abroad experience. For example, my choice of homestay (in which I was paired with Senora Pilar Gonzaléz Chao and my NYC roommate, Denisa) was motivated by my aspirations to be integrated into the culture.
However, after living with in a homestay for a few months I’ve detected some highs and lows I hadn’t considered before.
Here is a break down of experience of friends living in apartments, homestay families, and student residences in Madrid in the form of- you guessed it- a pros and cons list.

HOMESTAY FAMILY
Pro
– “True cultural experience.”
– Gain little wisdom nuggets from a native you wouldn’t get anywhere else:
historical facts, recipes, best places to eat or get a haircut.
–> 68 year old Snra. Chao told me where the free museums are, how to roll croquetas, where every festival in Spain is, and that the reason she didn’t learn to drive until her 20’s was because she refused to take the homemaking course mandatory with getting a license under Franco. Our dinnertime talks were one of the most meaningful aspects of my homestay experience.

Con
– Full board meal plan = No control over diet. If you’re a selective eater (dieting, vegan, picky), don’t get full board. Be prepared to eat as they people do. Madrileños: small breakfast, large lunch at 2-4 PM, tapas, dinner 10 PM.
– Language barrier (if you have one).
– No friends over. This came as a huge bummer to me because I prefer socializing by throwing pot lucks, having friends over for drinks or movies.
– Not recommended if you need your space.
– You have to eat within acertain time period

Depends
– You can’t be shy about specifying your wants. And prepare yourself for miscommunication. A health conscious peer of mine requested her senora add more vegetables to her carb/fried meals; croquetas and calamari became batter-fried cauliflower and peppers
– You can’t cook for yourself. Cooking is a hobby and creative outlet for me, so it was annoying to be forbidden from even frying an egg. Adding to the bother is when I’m scrutinized or fussed over when I’m just trying to spread jam on bread.
– Yes, you can still maintain a nocturnal social life; they know you are young, funky, and like to go out. You don’t have a curfew. BUT you do need to respect the family you are living with, such as being quiet as you can when you do

APARTMENT/PISO
– If you’ve already spent college living in an off campus apartment, why not try pressing the borders of your comfort zone and do something different? (ie, homestay family?)
– tend to live with other exchange people/ may be from other countries, but they are rarely Spaniards
– you control your own meals: you control your own diet, you miss out on cultural food because you cook what you’re used to

RESIDENCE
– The ones I’ve heard of come with a dining hall and your meal plan is mandatory since you don’t have a kitchen. If you’re a picky eater (or vegan, vegetarian) you may not want someone else deciding what you’re going to eat everyday. The girl I know lives on French fries.
– It’s dorm life. With a roommate.
– Probably procure a gym membership with your residence
– May have to eat within a certain time period; not whenever

*Advice based only from me + a handful of other people, from 1 semester in Madrid, Spain. Take it with grains of salt.

Strasbourg

Saturday, March 19, I went to Strasbourg with the CLA. We left from Besançon around 6h30. I was not whatsoever happy with the hour, especially since I had gotten 5 hours of post-St. Patrick’s Day sleep between Thursday and Friday. Luckily though, the bus stopped during the trip (about a 2.5 hr trip) so that everyone could get some coffee and breakfast.



I have no recollection of what time we arrived. It was ridiculously cold! After arriving and walking through town a bit, we took a boat ride to take a tour of the city – it was awesome! There were headphones at every seat with 16 frequencies to listen to the tour information in several languages – French, French for kids, English, English for kids, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Spanish, etc. I feel like I saw almost all of the town. The old buildings there are so cool, as are some of the newer ones.



Later on, we were “freed” for three hours to explore. I ate with Kirk in an Alsacien restaurant – I had an Alsacian dish with chicken, veal and mushrooms, all with a light cream sauce, on top of a bit of some cool bread. Deliciousness! Of course it was really expensive though…




Next, we visited the Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-Strasbourg; I learned that it was the biggest building in the world between 1647 and 1874…that’s pretty badass if you ask me. The entrance is surrounded with tons of statue figures – there were a few that made me laugh a lot even though I don’t think that is exactly their intended purpose.

Very funny

The fourth guy is hilarious

 

Inside, it’s incredibly large and the architecture is beautiful. I uploaded a lot more photos of the interior on my Photobucket album (link at the end of the most) to better explain/show what it looked like. Unfortunately, I didn’t know while I was there that you can climb to the top of one of the big towers of the cathedral.


After that, we walked through the city for awhile; before we had to go back to Besançon, we went to another church, after having found the Hotel of the Dragon on the Street of the Dragon…too funny. The church was creepy inside! There were statues of demons, skeletons, etc. Furthermore, there is a huge statue in the back with a lion, a skeleton or demon and a bloody battle. Weird.

Finally, we returned to Besançon. Strasbourg was incredibly cool, even though I was freezing the entire time.

The rest of the photos of Strasbourg

– Matt Lipinski

 

Dear Australia

Dear Australia,

My heart longs for you. I want to be home again.

From,
Leo

P.S.
I miss Fed Square, Torquay, the trains, the trams, my friends, the surf, the footy, the possibility of new adventures. I miss riding in the car with Chris. I miss reading Mx on the way home. I miss Australians; their friendliness and kindness. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

St. Patrick’s Day!

St. Patrick’s Day in France was actually pretty awesome. I had class all day, which was not fun obviously. I easily broke the “anguish” of work by having a large Guinness upon returning back to my dorm. Afterwards, we went out to dinner at this placed called “100 Patates” (100 potatoes): all he cooks for dinner is potato variations. Oh my god was it delicious. We got a student price, which also included salad and a dessert…it was incredibly filling. The first dish is what Carrie and Tessa each got – three cheese! The second and third photo are of my potato – curry, chicken, raisins and grilled onions with a very light curry-cream sauce. It is one of the most delicious things in Besançon.




After an incredibly filling dinner, we went out to Madigan’s Irish Pub, in spirit of the evening, and had Guiness. After some time there, we switched to another Irish Pub, Kilarney’s, to finish off the night with Guiness and Kilkenny’s – both very delicious beers. We unfortunately missed the “free” gigantic Irish hat giveaway, but I did end up with several cool Kilarney’s cups in spirit of the evening. I essentially didn’t take any pictures since I was much too busy enjoying the evening!



The hats we unfortunately missed


– Matt Lipinski