Was it all just a dream?

My first day back home and it all just seems a far away dream. Coming off the plane the customs guy messed with me ’cause he saw how excited I was.

I ran into my family’s arms and tears escaped from our eyes. Everyone stared. I was back with my family.

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Rewind to a week ago when my New Paltz friend Angela and I arrived in Baños, Ecuador. Out of all the places to travel to before I left, this was the best pick.

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In Baños we ate amazing food.

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Like the vegetarian meal that caused me to be a veggie head.

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We went to the amazon,

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Angela jumped from a bridge,

we glided hundreds of feet over rivers

and we swung over valleys.

 

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We also met people from all over the world!

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We met up with other exchange students from UEES and hung out.

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and before leaving Ecuador, I said some goodbyes to some really great friends.

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E>What a great experience. I love you Ecuador!!!

A Belated But Prolonged Spring Break pt.1

While all of my friends from home had their spring breaks a few weeks ago, mine began this week. I think it was placed at an odd point in the semester, because it is a two-week break, and there will only be two weeks of class when I return to France, but I’ve learned that many things about France are odd compared to what I’m used to from home.
Early last Friday morning, I departed from my room in Besancon and begun the long journey to the UK. After the two-hour train ride to Paris, I hopped on the metro and went to Gare du Nord to find my train to London. This was the first time that I ever traveled by train to a different country, and I was surprised to see that it was similar to air travel.
I had my passport stamped by French border control and went through security before I needed to go through UK customs. I was asked so many questions, ranging from my parents’ jobs to how a trip to England would improve my studies.
That was the hard part. Two and a half hours after that, I was in London. The London underground system was much easier to figure out than I had expected– I easily got from London St Pancras to London Blackfriars, where I got on a train to a city called Brighton.
Brighton is a cute city along the coast, with a large student population. I spent the weekend there visiting a childhood camp friend, Rhys, who goes to university in Brighton. Friday night and Saturday, Rhys showed me all of the best parts of Brighton: the pier, the rocky beaches, fish & chips,  the North End (full of antique shops and thrift stores).
On Sunday, Rhys and I took a train to see Stonehenge. It was a typical English day– rainy, cold and windy. On Monday, we spent a few hours in Oxford. It’s another lovely city, which was really just built to satisfy the 800-year-old Oxford University. We learned a lot about the city’s history and saw many of the historic sights.
Late Monday afternoon, I said goodbye to Rhys and went back to London. My cousin Catherine, who is spending the semester in London, met me at Paddington Station. Catherine is staying in a flat in the Paddington district, which is a really great area. It’s close to Kensington Gardens, which is one of my favorite parks that I’ve visited.
This is my second visit to London, but it is very different to be here with a friend during springtime than when I was here with my family during the wintertime. I’ve seen some sights I missed during my last trip, such as the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Peter Pan statue. And, of course, I’ve revisited the major sights, like Big Ben, the London Eye, Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace, and Westminster Abbey.
I am loving London. This city feels the closest to home out of every place I’ve traveled to this summer. Maybe it’s the language or just the similar luxuries, like Netflix and sushi. I still have a few more days in London before I go off to Holland, which will all be discussed in my next post!
Stonehenge

Stonehenge

Brighton

Brighton

Oxford

Oxford

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens

Parliament and Big ben

Parliament and Big ben

Thank you, Milan. You’re just another city.

The question people ask me the most is, “How is Milan?” or the slight variation, “What is Milan like?”

The truth is that Milan is just another city. There are hundreds of cities in the world; they’re the areas of most concentrated population. So if Milan is just another city, what’s the point of coming here? If you’ve been to one city, what’s the point in seeing the rest?

The beauty in traveling to another city is the simultaneous realization of how similar, and yet how different the city you’re familiar with is to how this particular city is in reality. Many things are exactly the same, for the most part: the subway systems (or metros) and taxis operate much in the same way. Same with the busses. Then you begin to notice some slight culturally significant things in these areas. A group of Italians standing around a coffee vending machine during the morning commute. A 24-hour tabacco shop. The fact that most shops are closed on sunday. The absence of people wearing sneakers. One time, at a coffee shop, my friend and I witnessed a short, middle-aged woman barge in at 9AM, order a globe sized glass of red wine, chug it in one sip, and walk out. Nobody batted an eye. This was common.

You yourself get offered a beer or a glass of wine every day at lunchtime. Aren’t people who drink before nighttime drunks? Around the block from my house, the priests and nuns smoke cigarettes and drink wine after mass. This would not fly in America, and this is why it’s necessary to leave one’s home country at least once in their life—to witness a way of life that does not coincide with your own constructed reality and preconceived notions of the world. It shatters what you think you knew. This is Italy, and it existed in this same way before you came here.

One particularly jarring difference is in the treatment of women in public, as well as in private. In America, these are hot button issues that many fight over every day. In Italy,  it’s a bit different. Public displays of affection, or PDA, are the common way. It’s fairly normal for a guy to approach a girl on a train and try to talk to her; sometimes not taking no for answer. With large age gaps, it can be rude to ignore someone completely or not hear what they have to say. In America, we respect personal space. If you want to be left alone to your book on the metro, you’d better bring a pair of headphones.

Not to pass moral judgement on another culture. You can’t expect to go somewhere thousands of miles away and have every social cue be the same. You need to adapt to something you don’t always necessarily believe in, and this is probably the most frustrating part of being abroad. It’s also where you learn the most, funny enough. One area where it’s necessary to adjust is in schooling. The class structure is very lax—teachers don’t hunt you down or take anything personally, or check up to make sure you’ve done a single one of your assignments or readings. Then grading is incredibly harsh and unforgiving. Sometimes it feels like teachers don’t care how you do. I walked with my teacher the other day and talked about our different memories of 9/11. Another teacher, a professional actor, gushed to me about how upset he is with the state of current theatre productions in Italy. It’s not that they don’t care—this is just how things are for them. You can either leave class in frustration or go up to their desk after class and ask them a question. It’s all your choice. They can’t raise your hand for you.

Now we come to the language barrier. What other way can I put it? It’s horrifying, yet once again, it forces you to put every word, every skill you’ve learned in the language you’re learning to the test. It’s worth it. I spoke solely in Italian today when I ran errands. In the beginning of my time in Milan, it was just a “si” or “grazie.” Now it’s asking for help, describing what I’m looking to buy, commenting on the state of things. It’s a work in progress, but once again, it’s the kind of progress you can make by resolving to try. The one thing most people don’t learn how to do is to apologize to someone when you didn’t understand them, or when you just can’t progress further in the conversation. “Scusi, sono americano. Non ho capito.” (Excuse me, I am an American. I didn’t understand.). People appreciate your humbleness, your try at assimilating to their way of life first.

If you walk into a shop, a store, or a government facility and try to speak English only, don’t be surprised when you get some sideways glances and a bit of a standoffish aura. Remember the times in America in which you were frustrated someone was speaking solely in Spanish to you. Remember what it was like when they at least tried to speak in English. Now, I have the utmost respect for the countless immigrants who come to America and really do assimilate themselves as best they can. What’s it say about Americans, when they expect to go to a whole other country in the world and expect signs, menus, and people to communicate in English? These are the same people annoyed with multiple language options in America.

Overall, Milan is just another city. It’s taught me so much, though. I could write a book on how much it’s taught me. I probably will someday. Thanks, Milan.

 

 

 

Nagasaki (with a little bit of food, too)!

I’ve lived on Long Island for most of my life, and in New York for all of it. I’ve been to other places, but not really outside of America or even off the east coast for that matter. So when I first arrived in Japan, I wasn’t really aware of how much of a different lifestyle is lived here. Starting with the fact that Nagasaki’s environment is completely different from New York’s. When I left New York it was snowing. I had my winter jacket, a scarf and boots. But when I arrived I was incredibly surprised by how warm and beautiful it was.  I guess you can consider Nagasaki to be a tropical environment. Its only April but I have found that the weather is usually sunny and warm, although it’s supposed to be very hot and humid during the summer.

I was absolutely exhausted from being on a plane for over fifteen hours when I first arrived. It was just after 10PM when I landed and nearly midnight by the time I arrived at the hotel. So being here didn’t really phase me until the following day, when we took a bus from Fukuoka to Nagasaki. That day was the first time that I interacted with the people in Japan. The language barrier is (and probably will be for the rest of the time I’m here) always an issue. But it’s not even just the speaking part that I found difficult, but the use of a completely different writing system (they have three different alphabets that are constantly used in signs and on menus and other things). I am constantly embarrassing myself because I don’t quite understand what people are saying to me!

Another thing. The food, obviously, is completely different here. But I don’t think anyone realizes just how different until you actually get here. Like everyone who has never been to Japan would think that our idea of sushi is what sushi really is. It’s not at all. Learned that the hard way. And I’ve found that the Japanese seem to have a strange love of mayonnaise and ketchup that I don’t think I can match to be honest. I like most of the food, but some of it I could do without. Two things that I absolutely cannot eat based on taste alone are mushrooms and fish, which for some reason seem to be included in absolutely every dish in Japan. I’m exaggerating of course, but trust me there’s a lot of these dishes here. The dorm’s food and the school’s food are okay, kind of like school food in general. But from what I can tell you about the restaurants here, the food is pretty great. I even had Champon/Chanpon (I have no idea how it’s spelled to be honest) which is a pretty big deal and had a pretty interesting history in Nagasaki. It was really good! I’ll talk about it more in a future post.

Bonus! Here are a few pictures that I did manage to take before eating.

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I’ll do another post on food at some point, once I get more pictures. I don’t usually take pictures of my food before I eat it, but I guess I should start. But until then, thanks for reading!

Hello from Nagasaki, Japan!

First of all, I’d like to formally apologize for not posting sooner. I unfortunately forgot to bring a charger converter with me, and I only recently got one.

So I guess that means I’ve got to catch you guys up on a lot of things. I’ve been here for a little more than three weeks now, which may not seem like much time in the grand scheme of things (I’ll be here for about four months total), but I’ve done a lot of activities so far!

I’ll start with the months before I arrived in Japan. I left New York on March 25th (and arrived the next day on March 26th, got to love time zones!). That means that I had a little more than three months to prepare for my study abroad experience, go on an emotional roller coaster, and say goodbye to all of my friends, family and my home. I was really nervous to leave, but I was also really excited to experience something new.

In the months before my departure, a lot of people asked me why I had chosen to go to Japan. To be honest I didn’t know how to answer that question. As an Asian Studies major, academically it made sense for me to want to study abroad in Japan. And I’ve always been interested in the culture and arts of Japan, so why not. But to be honest I think I’m the type of person who just throws herself into things without thinking about it, and then just figures it out as she goes along. And I think that’s what I’m doing here.

I’m not experienced when it comes to travelling. I went to Puerto Rico with my family once, but that’s about as far as I’ve travelled. So I hadn’t really ever left the country before, let alone gone anywhere without the comfort of family or friends. I took two planes. The first was a little over twelve hours, and took me from JFK in New York to Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan. The second flight took only a little more than an hour and a half, and took me from Tokyo to Fukuoka. The next day all of the new students took a bus to Nagasaki, which is where I am currently. From the moment we arrived in Nagasaki we were thrown straight into orientation for the next two weeks!

I was extremely unprepared when I first got here. I didn’t pack until the night before my flight. Let me tell you that was such a mistake. Not only was I extremely stressed out, but I forgot so much stuff! My suitcase was 52lbs, but I still had to have my mom send me a package with important stuff as soon as I got here!

Not only was I unprepared physically, but I could barely remember any of the Japanese I had already learned (and I’ve been taking Japanese at New Paltz for at least three semesters, so that should’ve counted for something). I mean, I had brushed up on my Japanese a little here and there throughout February and March, but not nearly as much as I should have. I was a bit of a mess when I first got here, because I could only remember a few basic words and phrases. But I think I’ve got the hang of it now that I’m getting used to everything. The language barrier has to be the hardest part of studying abroad (but only in places where they don’t speak a language that you know). I’ve embarrassed myself on more than one occasion, but I think that’s just a part of learning a new language. Besides that, everyone is willing to help you when you put in the effort. I’ve made a bunch of new friends, learned a bunch of new things in Japanese and am really excited to experience new things that I never thought would be possible!

So I guess that’s it for now, but I’ll keep you guys updated on things in Japan!

Family Visit to Versailles

I spent last weekend with my cousins, Lise, Olivier, and Camille, who live in Étampes, a city close to Paris. I love visiting them and being in a family setting, regardless of how different it is from being with my family at home.

When I first got to Étampes, Lise decided we needed to go to a supermarket to find matzah for me. Even though Passover didn’t start for another three days, she thoughtfully knew that it was an important part of our culture and we should have a few boxes. Matzah is not the easiest thing to find in France, and Lise spent a good twenty minutes running around the store with me trailing along, having a word with everyone who worked there until she found the only two boxes of Matzah.

We got to their house around 6PM and Lise put dinner on the table. The thing I don’t understand, though, is that even if dinner is ready, we don’t eat it until 9. It’s so different from what I’m used to at home.

While waiting to eat, five-year-old Camille and I watched La Reine des neiges, which is the French title for Frozen. We watched it once in French and once in English.

The next day, we drove to Versailles and spent the whole day touring the château and the gardens. I had been to Versailles before, but I hadn’t spent the whole day or visited the gardens.

The château is gorgeous. I would love to see what it looks like without being full of tourists and without the ropes blocking visitors from getting to close to the furniture. The whole day, I kept trying to imagine what it would be like to call that palace “home,” to be able to walk out into the gardens with a book whenever I felt like it.

It was a lovely weekend altogether. Aside from visiting Versailles, we mainly just stayed in the house. It was nice to be able to just relax with family after being away from home for three months. And, because my cousins don’t speak English, I basically studied all weekend!

The hall of mirrors is my favorite room.

The hall of mirrors is my favorite room.

Another room in the Palace of Versailles

Another room in the Palace of Versailles

A view of the palace from the gardens.

A view of the palace from the gardens.

My cousins being adorable in the gardens

My cousins being adorable in the gardens

A view of the gardens from right outside of the palace.

A view of the gardens from right outside of the palace.

Appreciation.

This will be a short one, as I will be traveling very much in the next few days, but it is something which needs to be said.

Going abroad is interesting in that it opens you up to so many new feelings and experiences which just aren’t possible in your home country. I learn something new every day, and inquire as I go along. You can talk for hours with your Italian friends about social nuances and cues.

Another enriching thing about going abroad is a bit paradoxical. By leaving the people you care about the most, you realize how truly important those people are to you. They’re the ones who make your life so amazing, and when you’re not near them, you have to work hard to stay connected. The peculiar thing I’ve learned is that sometimes you need to leave to know how much people mean to you.

I couldn’t ask for better friends, and they are some of the main reasons for my happiness. I miss you guys, and I wish you were here. You would all love it.

And to all my family, I can’t wait to see you again. Thanks for supporting me in this experience.

And to all the amazing friends I’ve made here, and will soon be leaving: we’ll keep in touch, much like the way I’m keeping up with the amazing people across the ocean.

Thanks.

Next week will be an overview of my experience in Milan so far.

Weekend In Luxembourg And Metz

When registering for this program, we were told that we would get two excursions throughout the semester with lodging and transportation paid for. I’m not too sure what’s going on, but we keep getting free trips thrown at us.

This past weekend we enjoyed our third excursion, a trip to Luxembourg, Luxembourg and Metz, France. Saturday was a long bus ride to Luxembourg. We stopped along the way at a truck rest stop to have some lunch. Since the Europeans love their meal times, we had over an hour to relax. We hopped back on the bus and were soon at our hostel.

After we unpacked in our rooms we jumped back on the bus for a tour around the town, the first half on the bus, the second walking around the breathtaking scenery.

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After the tour, we were off on our own for free time and discovered Centre Ville. I was told that Luxembourg was a rich country and, boy, did I believe it. The architecture was incredible and the views were unimaginable.

One of my best friends fro Michigan, Tyler!

One of my best friends from Michigan, Tyler!

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We all met back at the hostel for a dinner of salad, chicken, potatoes and vegetable stew. They spoil us. Soon after, we headed back out into the city to enjoy the clubs. They were everything you would imagine a wild European club would be. We tired ourselves out dancing the night away and returned to our rooms for some sleep before our next busy day.

The next morning, they served us breakfast and we were off to Metz, France. Our first stop was Le Centre de Pompidou. At first I did not expect to enjoy this modern museum because I am the last one to find meaning out of abstract shapes, but to my surprise I thoroughly enjoyed the trip. Reading the captions and absorbing the atmosphere helped me enjoy the artwork.

You have to stand back far enough in order to see the figure

You have to stand back far enough in order to see the figure

Gillan and Diva in front of what looked like a very texturized wall

Gillan and Diva in front of what looked like a very texturized wall

Illuminated Trish

Illuminated Trish

We then went to the fourth floor for the “Paparazzi” exhibit. Upon entering, you have many cameras flashing at you, microphones moving, and a recording of a crowd nagging you. It was a simulation of the red carpet that I’m sure is not nearly as bad as real life. They then had tons of racy photos of female celebrities, which I learned that the Paparazzi follow some of these women for years before getting a truly suggestive and inappropriate picture. Though this exhibit made me extremely angry and disgusted, I really enjoyed the experience.

After the museum was free time in Centre Ville. I found myself in La Cathèdrale Saint-Étienne de Metz on Palm Sunday, the cathedral with one of the largest expanse of stained glass in the world. The only way to truly appreciate it is to see it in person, photos don’t do any justice.

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Trish, Gissel and I enjoyed lunch at an Italian restaurant afterwards where they ate tortellinis and I had pizza and fries, which I did not think went together until I arrived in France. The meal was extremely delicious and satisfying and afterwords, we walked around the town seeing the park, games in the street, and Le Graoully, the legendary dragon of Metz. Unfortunately when we saw him, a leg was missing.

Le Graoully

Le Graoully

Soon after, we had to catch the bus back home. The day went by extremely quickly but we were definitely exhausted and ready to go back home. It was a great weekend and us New Paltz students were told we have another prepaid trip for the day to Germany. So many things to look forward to!