Not How I Planned It, but Exactly How It Was Meant To Be

(Writing from 22nd Feb, 7 days since arrival)
Imagine the trip of a life time, landing into the beautiful new place to discover and instantly feeling at home. Imagine entering your new kingdom as a celebrity enters the Oscars, arms open wide to your arrival. Everything has worked out exactly the way you planned it, everything you’ve worked toward for several months, perhaps even a life time, has lead up to this special moment where you discover your destiny ahead of you.
Now take all of what I said, and scratch that under the rug. Then take the rug outside and beat it a couple times, uncovering the hard-wooden floor of reality. And that, is what it feels like once you first land. Don’t get me wrong, I knew that what I was embarking on was going to different. But mostly, I still had romantic hopes as I saw the sun rise over the Pacific on my long flight to Sydney. I thought that all my hopes and dreams had come true as I landed in Sydney, the great beauty of Australia, with the Opera House and Harbor welcoming me. Then I realized I was almost about to miss my flight to Melbourne, the poor man’s Sydney, and where’d I actually be spending my five months abroad. No matter, I knew Melbourne would be just as fantastic and full of adventure.
Getting off the plane there, I met my ride and set off to my accommodation. As the city slowly faded, I wondered exactly where my dorm was. Pulling up to the building, I realized that it was kind of in the middle of a dump, and not near what I had expected. After signing contracts and finding my room, much smaller than anticipated and without the shop pack I ordered in advance with my house supplies, I began to settle in. Because I got there after my roommate, he claimed most of the space in the room already, and I was stuck in the top bunk of the bed, using the highest shelves and the tops of cabinets and wardrobes to store everything (thankfully I’m tall). Then I met the man himself: my roommate, who although seemed nice enough, didn’t exactly seem like someone I’d form a friendship and actually enjoy rooming with (I admit, part of that was my hope to be with a real true-blue Aussie). We went out to get some basic supplies: milk, cheese, toilet paper, and what not, and ended up getting lost. By the time I made it back to the lodge, I decided enough was enough, and I needed to wander around on my own for a while.
This wasn’t at all what I anticipated. I was in a dumpy suburb, neither in the bush nor the city, without anything in my room in terms of supplies (no toilet paper, pillows, blankets, etc.) and stuck with a roommate who still struggled with English. I was exhausted, from nearly two days without sleep and near thirty hours of flights and layovers (note to self: if you go to Australia again, spend a day or two in Hawaii first, even if just to sleep. You’ll thank yourself later). On top of that, my phone, despite my efforts, didn’t work at all, and I had no way of getting in touch with my family to let them know I was alright.
What I ended up finding is, even though it wasn’t what I planned, it worked out exactly the way it was supposed to. Eventually, I did get my supplies (THREE days later), and I’ve adjusted to my arboreal life in the top bunk. I discovered I was actually kind of glad to be in the suburban area I was, with most everything I need local enough to walk to, as well as top-notch public transport system that can take you into and around Melbourne with ease (it’s especially nice that the campus is across the street, and the grocery store and train station going into the city are only 15 minutes away). The campus itself looks nice and not too difficult to navigate, and although I’m not excited for classes next week am sure it’ll be alright and I’ll adjust well. The thing I’m finding though, is that wherever you go in the world there’s always good people out there, and so far, there’s a lot of them in Australia. The security guard at Sydney Airport that helped me catch my flight, the staff at the lodge patient and understanding as I try to adjust, people on the street showing me the ropes with public transport and finding my way around, and even friendly blokes at the bar willing to help me figure out how to call home and let my family know I made it safely.
I’ve met the others here from New Paltz and other SUNY schools and they were all thrilled to meet me, and I was to meet them too. We’ve only known each other about a week, but we all get along and already have great and big adventures planned in the coming months. It’s relatively easy to befriend people and talk to them, even for me, and even if I don’t go out to great parties and events to mingle with people, so far I’m okay with that because I can already tell I’m making friends with this small group (still, it’d be great to meet some locals as well who can give tips and tricks on life in Melbourne).
Maybe this wasn’t exactly the way I planned it out to be. It rarely is, I think. But in my opinion, I’m fairly glad it turned out this way. Maybe there’s more to it than what I could have imagined. And I can’t wait to find out.

The Journey of a Lifetime- Melbourne

(Writing from Feb 11th, 2 days before flight). I’m sitting by the television, eating dinner with my family, I turn my head to look at the window. It’s beginning to snow, just a little bit though, not enough to cover much of anything. The weather, though cold, is supposed to be fine for the next few days. Even though the heat is on my step-mom is still freezing, and my sister is cuddled with her set of blankets. This is the life I’m used to. Aside from just ONE semester at New Paltz, this is all I really know.

And that’s the moment it hits: in two days, everything I know is going to change. Instead of cold winter weather, I’ll be hit with the hot Australian summer. In place of Jeopardy with my old-fashioned family, I’ll be watching the sun rise over the Pacific from 30,000 feet. I already said goodbye to my extended family at church today and my friends at New Paltz a week ago, and soon enough I’ll have to leave my sister, father, and step mother too. Cars will drive on the other side of the road, the birds will sing different songs, even the night stars will be different then back home. Heck, for all I know, people will talk backwards and everything will look upside-down.

I’m nervous, of course. I only left home a few months ago to go to college, and now I’m going to have to learn total independence. I’ve never been to a foreign country (save for one rainy and rather dreary experience in Montreal in 8th grade, ending with me getting lost in the Notre Dame), never even been outside of the northeast US. I hardly know anything about my life here, and suddenly I’m about to plunge into a new world ten thousand miles away. The only place I could go further from home is further in Australia (which I intend to do, if I can). I ask myself what my ‘plan’ is after school, as if I have any idea anymore. I ask who I am and who I want to be. I question my future and my part in this world. In part due to my faith, part because of my great support from family and friends, and part perhaps simple hope, I believe that there’s more out there I can comprehend, somewhere a role for me in changing this world into a better place. There’s more than I can possibly know out there for me, if only I can reach out and take it. But how? Where does that journey begin?

Perhaps, this is where that great chapter of my life begins. Going to Australia has been my dream for years, and now I’m actually able to make it happen. I’ve always been fascinated with the culture, the history, landscape, and environment, which is largely unknown in America (unfortunately, P Sherman 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney does not actually exist) and want to explore it as much as I can. I even started writing about going to Australia in a novel I’ve been working on for some time. From the looks of it, it’s a beautiful country and I’m eager to see what I can (on a limited budget). Also, looking at home, I realize more and more that even though it’s nice enough where I am, I don’t know that I want to stay. I need to explore the world, see things and grow. And on this trip, I plan on trying to do all of that: learn about other people and the world, become more independent, stretch way out of my comfort zone, grow as a person, and do everything I can to shine light into the world.

I don’t know exactly what will come from all of this. You never do, but I guess that’s how faith works. But I’m certain that, whatever road is planned for me, it’ll lead to a great new perspective on life and shape me more and more into the person I strive to be.

 

Home

I’ve now been back in America for a few weeks, and it’s been nice. I really did not want to leave Ireland, but there are definitely comforts from home that I underestimated the importance of, and once i got home, I did start to appreciate being home, even though I didn’t want to leave at all. I still miss Ireland, and the other parts of Europe I visited, and I think about it all the time. I miss the people and places I met and discovered, and I definitely want to visit. I am not sure how it will be adjusting to New Paltz. While it will be nice to be back at school, I am really going to miss being in Limerick. I hope to visit Limerick over spring break, but it is not definite. I know I definitely want to go back to Ireland at some point. This experience was truly unlike any other, and I am so proud and grateful to have embarked on this semester-long journey, and I will always keep it near and dear to my heart.

Coming Back to America

I’m not really happy to come back to America. I’m going to miss being abroad. I’m going to miss the people I met, and the experiences I’ve had while being here. Everything is going to feel so different when i come back. When I first came here, I was so homesick and I wanted to be back home, specifically in New Paltz, but now that it’s time to go, I’m going to miss the people and places. But I’ so glad to have had this experience, and I will always treasure it, and I would totally recommend it to others who are considering studying abroad.

Culture Shock

Culture shock is something you will inevitably hear about when you decide to embark on a journey half way across the globe. I was told I’d have trouble adapting to the culture, the language, the customs, traditions, and the currency. I was convinced however, that the term “culture shock” was an exaggeration used to describe how maladapted individuals responded to normal changes you experience when living in another country. I considered myself a versatile and malleable individual who could handle anything thrown my way. Looking back, I realize this was my way of coping with the anxiety I felt from entering the unknown; which of course is 100% normal. The first week in Prague I was actually shown this graph:

 

 

I brushed it off as I was also taking in hundreds of other bits and pieces of information. But the wiser more experienced version of myself is now here to tell you that there is a high chance that you will experience culture shock. Plain and simple. If you are living in a country where you are a foreigner, culture shock is inevitable. Once the excitement of being in a new place and experiencing new things wears off, frustration, to some degree, will take over you.

 

Let me paint a picture for you:

Imagine you are midway throughout your semester and have just been reminded by your professor that your ten-page research paper is due in a week. Now I know what you’re thinking: you’re a responsible student who stays on top of your work and forgetting you have a paper due is not in your nature. But when you’re exploring a city you have limited time in day in and day out whilst traveling during the weekends, due dates are easy to forget. Luckily, European professors do not give homework for the most part but their easygoing character also means they won’t be constantly reminding you of when your big papers and projects are due. So now that you have some context of the situation you may find yourself in, imagine it’s also around the time where you begin to feel home sick. When holidays like Thanksgiving come up or a beloved one’s birthday, you will begin to miss home (I recommend disconnecting from social media as much as possible to counter-act this).

 

Now picture yourself in this hypothetical scenario, with these things lingering in your subconscious, and all of a sudden you find yourself unable to communicate with someone at a café. They don’t speak English and you don’t speak their language fluent enough for them to understand either; this can be really frustrating!

 

Halfway through your frustration you remind yourself that you’re a guest in someone’s country and this is to be expected thus allowing yourself to “brush it off.” On your way home (yes Prague became home) you are being stared at and laughed at. You tell yourself that it’s normal to stand out but you feel your blood start to boil a little. This is culture shock. When the excitement of being in a new place wears off you are faced with the fact that you are somewhere where you stand out all the time. You may begin to think everyone’s constantly staring at you and judging you and well, they probably are.

 

The most efficient way I’ve found to get over culture shock is to accept that you are a foreigner in another land. I find that it helps to think back to all the times you innocently laughed at someone who didn’t speak English, who was completely lost with no sense of direction, or who simply annoyed you because they were “tourists.” Accepting that you are a tourist in another country will make for a less frustrating realization of cultural differences. The faster you can accept this, the quicker this “shock” will pass on by. And trust me, it will pass. If you make an effort to get out of your comfort zone, nine out of ten times you will be rewarded. The reward is life long friendships, new perspectives, gratitude for the people in your life, and personal growth.

 

“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” – Clifton Fadiman

Brussels

I spent a few days in Brussels, and it was a really awesome experience. My hostel was right near Grand Place, which was really convenient, and it’s beautiful. I went to some museums and really enjoyed taking in the surroundings. One museum was the Royal Museum of Art, which is really cool, and quite huge. I also went to a small town called Bruges, which was a train ride away. It’s very small, but so unique that it was so worth it to spend a day there. I had amazing food and delicious chocolate. Brussels definitely has a lot to see and do, and of course eat, and I think I would definitely like to go back and get to see even more of it.

A Must See: Aushwitz

The German phrase “Arbeit Macht Frei” means only work can set you free. This sign is visibly seen as you enter the former concentration camp in Aushwitz, Poland. Oh the irony…

It was a six hour overnight bus ride from Prague to Aushwitz. We departed at midnight so naturally none of my peers or myself got a good nights rest. There was one unpleasant and ironically unforeseeable misfortune that backtracked our trip there: a thick fog. This fog caused a lot of traffic as drivers could quite literally not see the road. However, this didn’t stop Eva, our wonderful tour guide, from rushing our breakfast in order to make it to the camp by 7am. It was important to get there at the very beginning of opening hours as typically Aushwitz is extremely packed, ultimately taking away from the experience.

It’s easy to lack empathy when you learn about the history of Jews in a middle school history class. After visiting Aushwitz, every single one of my peers, Jewish or not, shed a tear. I saw the actual gas chambers bodies were disposed of in. I saw thousands of shoes and suitcases that belonged to actual people who were murdered. I walked through an underground tunnel built for the prisoners. I witnessed some of my friends search through a massive book of names of the victims killed; many of whom found their relatives and cried with grief.

What I saw in Aushwitz was terrifying, horrifying, unjust, but necessary to have witnessed. Yes I knew about the atrocities that went on at this extermination camp, they were unfortunate, but distant. They were stories, statistics, numbers, and seemed very far away. Truth is, not very long ago, had you lived in Europe, you could have been a part of this brutal history. What if this was my family? My sister or brother? My cousin? My child? My friend? My neighbor? Visiting Aushwitz makes it personal for you, regardless where you come from.

For all my traveling enthusiasts reading, traveling with the intention to understand the history of a place will make your experience much more worthwhile. It will forever change your perspective of the world and the people that reside in it.

“For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women, and children, mainly Jews from various countries of Europe.” Aushwitz-Birkenau 1940-1945

 

A Milano Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving might be my favorite holiday- it’s a holiday that my family goes all out for. When I was younger, we would sit around the dining room table on Thanksgiving eve and write out gratitude leaves. My mom would make so many dishes- main and side- all from scratch! I always admired her hard work on this holiday. Then, on Thanksgiving day, my grandma, aunt, and cousins (all 20 of them), would come in the afternoon and we’d spend the day eating delicious food and watching Star Wars. Being away from home on Thanksgiving was going to be tough, so I decided to throw my first Thanksgiving with my flatmates and friends who I made abroad. Half of us are American, so we celebrate Thanksgiving every year. But for the other half of us, this was their first Thanksgiving! It really was special to me that I got to share one of my favorite holiday with people of all different backgrounds.

Another thing about me- I L O V E cooking. I made chicken cutlets (because here in Milan, turkey is REALLY expensive), corn, green beans, gravy and an apple crisp. Others brought mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, veggie lasagna, tiramisu, chocolate cake and lots and lots of wine. It definitely was a Milanese Thanksgiving haha.

We spent hours playing card games, eating good food, chatting and more! It was one of my favorite Thanksgiving’s that I’ve spent so far. I am so grateful for all of the people who came- and some who couldn’t make it 🙁 These people are unapologetic and kind and intelligent. I’m so glad I had this opportunity to be here in Milan. I don’t want to leave just yet!

Citizen of the World

I have not written a blog post since I have arrived. Why you may be wondering? The experiences I have been through in nearly the two months I have been studying in the Czech Republic have been so incredibly life-changing that it’s evoked a feeling of lethargy. Thats weird isn’t it? I expected the opposite to occur; I thought I’d feel alive, empowered, ready to overcome procrastination, and be the best most productive version of myself. But the truth is that it has taken some time to process everything I have been living day in and day out while abroad. I had to give myself time to truly reflect on my experiences here before being able to write about them. So without further adieu, I share with you the insights I’ve gained from my journey here.

 

For starters, arriving in Prague was like a fairytale. This is one of the most beautiful cities in the entire world. The architecture, the history, the theatre and arts are only some of the various things Prague has to offer. Don’t take my word for it see for yourself:

Brunch in the sky

 

 

The view from my classroom makes it hard to focus sometimes

In the beginning, everything was so fast paced it was truly hard to take it all in. One day I’d be visiting Terezin, the former Jewish ghetto where terrible, horrible atrocities occurred, and the next day I’d be hanging out at a pub with people from all around the world. Now that I have a firm grasp of my surroundings, I have finally been able to settle in and reflect on my experiences. I travelled pretty much every weekend since late September up until late October. I visited Germany, Holland, Greece, and Poland. Each and every single country I’ve visited has somehow taken a piece of my heart. The history I’ve learned and the people I’ve met have undoubtedly changed my perspective on life. I no longer label myself as only being Colombian or American but rather a citizen of the world.

My point in saying this is to emphasize that we are all one human race and identifying ourselves with being of a certain nationality, many times creates a division to understanding people from other backgrounds.

Let me ask you something. What do you see in this picture? Look closely… You see a group of women of different ethnicities and even ages. The woman all the way in the back was my Airbnb Dutch host in Haarlem, Holland (right outside of Amsterdam), which I learned as I arrived is a rich white neighborhood. Now I don’t know how a group of six very different women were able to break the walls within us all, but the openness of our conversation was truly something beautiful.

Our Airbnb host opened up to us about the preconceived stereotypes she had of us when we first walked in. She wanted to express to us the shame she felt just because she was experiencing something she wasn’t used to. We spoke for what felt like hours about racism and thanked each other for destroying many stereotypes our very different societies had instilled on us. Connecting with people in such a raw and real way is what makes traveling so worthwhile.