In Circular Quay there are food markets that are a great way to learn about new restaurants in the area because every where has a small booth selling samples or meals. We went to Circular Quay on the perfect day this Sunday because there was also a huge event going on as well with bands playing in one of the central areas, with all the roads near shut down.
Best burgers in town!
Myself and two friends who I live with at the Opera House, a perfect view behind us
Hattie
After last weekend at the top of Westfield Tower I decided I would love to spend more time in Sydney. Because my school is actually in an outskirt city of Sydney (Marsfield) going into the city is more of a day task than just an hour or two. I went with some friends I met in my condos (The Village) and we decided that we should go hang out at Circular Quay for the day. It was the perfect day for it, the sun was out and the city was looking pretty as ever.
Here is a view of the Sydney Bridge
Hattie
This weekend we went to the top of the Westfield tower in Sydney. This is the tallest building in the country and let me tell you, its so high up. The views were awesome and we were able to see around it in a complete circle. It kind of reminded me of the Space Needle in Seattle, but the view down was much different, seeing the opera house and the Sydney Bridge.
Here’s a view from the top! This city is too pretty
Hattie
This week I spent with the CIS Abroad crew playing and doing all kinds of things in a small beach town called Newcastle. This town is adorable and I have met some pretty awesome people so far on my trip. We spent the beginning of the week in Sydney then took a bus up to Newcastle where we have been staying at a hostel that’s really close to the beach. So far we have done so much fun stuff out here. We went out into the middle of the desert, but really it was apart of the ocean and went sandboarding. It was so much fun, hiking up the hill got really tiring though. On the way up we got a huge tour of the town, which was surprisingly much bigger than I imagined it being.
This is a picture of our whole group on the way up to go Sandboarding
After a long day of sandboarding we were able to go have a BBQ at a petting zoo! I was most excited about going to the petting zoo. All kinds of animals were there like goats, sheep, camels and kangaroos. I loved the kangaroos even though they are a bit temperamental at times they are so soft! There was a huge area where they were just able to roam around and play as they wished, they were a big lazy like this lil’ guy and just lounged around most of the visit.
This lil’ kangaroo just lounging in the sun, posing for the camera
Me with a baby Kangaroo
Hattie
Just landed in Sydney!
I just got to the first hostel that I am staying at while in Sydney where I am meeting my CIS Abroad group. They come in tomorrow and I can’t wait to meet them all. Sydney is a little different than I have expected, its cold out and very windy. Already knowing that it was winter in Australia right now but I didn’t think it was gonna be as similar to Oregon’s winter. I went exploring downtown at Circular Quay tonight and walked around by the Sydney Opera House, it really is as amazing as it looks in pictures. The material that it is made out of (the white tiles) are self cleaning, so when it rains they keep staying shiny white. So interesting that they never have to clean it. I can’t wait to meet everyone tomorrow and get going with my program, we are headed up north a bit to a small beach town called Newcastle for a few days to play!
Hattie
Hello All!
As I am about to board my plane to LAX I am writing this post, there are many thoughts going through my mind. So many questions are going through my mind. I am curious about what kind of people and friends I will meet, what activities will I be doing with my CIS Abroad group right when I get there, will I like my roommates? I am so excited to get going and can’t wait to land, 26 hours from now I will be in another timezone and 17 hours ahead of time than my friends and family here in Oregon. I am going to miss the Great Northwest but I think I am going to love my stay in Sydney. Here we go!
Hattie
Well this has been quite a week! After going out for a friends birthday on Monday, everyone was looking forward to Halloween. It was very strange to know that Halloween was so close, and yet it was nearly impossible to tell. Halloween is my favorite holiday back home and it was very surreal not to see the normal decorations outside people’s homes or stores filled with candy, decorations, and costumes. Although it is celebrated here in England, it does not seem to gain the massive hype and celebration that is does in the states. Well the big day came, and I finally saw what Halloween in England is all about-the party! As soon as it got dark there were ghosts and zombies creeping around campus as everyone prepared for a big night out.
One fun thing to note- costumes here are called “fancy dress”. When many of us Americans first arrived we were very confused when people asked us to a fancy dress party. We were thinking fancy as in dressy, like skirts and heels, but it turns out that fancy dress simply means dressing in costume. Anyway, around eight-o-clock everyone was in their fancy dress and gathering at the dorm next door for the big party, and it was certainly one heck of a night out!
Although I had a great time with my friends on Halloween I realized that I was starting to miss home. I think part of that may be because I missed the big party my family throws every year back home, and the other part because this was the first weekend where I wasn’t constantly surrounded by people. Many of the English students went home as reading week is coming up so they have a few days off, and many of the American students went on a trip to Scotland so there were not many people left in the hall for several days. I decided to through my orientation binder and found the acculturation curve we had talked about prior to departure and tried to figure out where I think I am.
The acculturation curve:
Right now I would say I am in phase 3: Acculturation. Luckily, I don’t feel that phase 2, or culture shock, was that long or difficult for me. This may be because I am in a nation whose culture is not extremely different from my own. There are certainly little differences, some of which can be very confusing, but in general it is easy to fit in and I don’t feel as though English culture as a whole is overwhelmingly different from my own in the U.S. I am glad, and a little sad, to say that the initial euphoira has worn off, and I am now adjusting to normal life again, just half way across the world.
One thing that was very comforting in the midst of my bout of homesickness was a small dinner party I had with some other international students where we made a pasta dinner and watched English TV shows. I believe Marissa commented about ‘Desperate Scousewives’ in her recent post-and I too think it is absolutely hilarious! It was nice to have a home cooked meal and talk with international students who were not from the U.S about their experiences and challenges living in England.
The Dinner Party:
Although this week has been somewhat challenging, I am looking forward to continuing the acculturation process and being able to really understand English culture and society. It will have to wait a week though, as I am off to Rome tomorrow morning for several days!!!
See you all next week with tales from Italy!!
Summer
I´ve just returned from a Halloween party in San Martin, which is about an hour away from San Juan Comalapa. I went with some of the Long Way Home crew and our other volunteer. Our host is a friend of the Executive Director of Long Way Home and the annual Halloween Party has been a tradition for four years. There was a live band from Chimaltenango that played a mix of metal and rock. The crowd was mostly young men and we gringos were certainly the only ones dressed up in costumes. Halloween is not a popular holiday here, so the fact that there was any kind of crowd was a success. The next day we went over to the cementery to watch some of the festivities of Dia de los Muertos, which is a Catholic holiday that honors the deceased. The tradition is to decorated the headstone of the loved one with flores, candels, and their favorite foods or drinks. Also, people fly kites to allow the souls to reach heaven and decorate them with paper that makes loud noises to scare away bad spirits. All day we watched thousands of these kites fly high up into the sky. As I watched, I wondered why is there not a holiday in my culture that celebrates the lives of those that have passed on? Is it not important to us to remember? Or is it that we are not a Catholic nation?
I´m sure it is a mixture of things, but I feel blessed to have experienced such a special holiday. No matter my culture or religion, I have decided to celebrate this holiday for years to come because I believe it is important to give an offereing, an act of rememberance to those who have gone before me. I want to have a special day for them.
In other news, yet another volunteer has arrived from Cananda and I am excited she is here. It is always nice to have more company and another travel buddy. I believe we are going to go to Antigua next weekend to check out some sites.
Work is going well. We collected 300 river rocks while we were in San Martin to finish one of the buildings known as the garrita. Last weekend we finished pouring concrete on the upper level of aula 0, which will someday be the art building. Sadly, two staff members, the Project Mananager and the Volunteer Coordinator, are leaving to the States next week so there will definitely be a different atmosphere around the worksite. It will take some adjusting, but I´m sure we will manage.
I´ll let you know in a couple of weeks.
Shannon
The inevitable blog about homesickness –for lack of a better term.
I don’t think I’ve ever gone this long without seeing my little sister since she was born!
I’m hoping that in the time it takes me to write this all out, a new term will have come to mind that describes the feeling better than “homesickness”.
Basically, if you ask me if I’m homesick, I’ll say no. If you ask me if I have been at all, I’ll probably say “yeah, I guess a little every once in awhile”. But it’s not that easy to describe. I will attempt to show you what I mean with a series of scenarios:
1. Once in awhile something will remind me of home. And I’ll have a slight pang of longing for that something. Then it will go away and I’ll be on my merry way.
2. Something will pose an irritating challenge (such as not being able to find free water or the microscopic size of coffee that doesn’t come with chocolate) that make me miss the way some things are in the States.
This is a pretty decent sized cup for France.
3. I’ll talk to a friend on Facebook and miss them specifically.
4. I’ll see events or exciting things going on at school from e-mails or Facebook and I’ll miss the WOU community.
5. Hard day, need a hug from family.
6. Start thinking about classes I’ll be taking or where I’ll be living when I get back and get really excited to be back.
7. As well as the excitement of reuniting with people and catching up.
8. And the excitement of experiencing the States and home and everything as a new person, who has changed and learned and experienced so much in the last few months. There are some things I’ll never look at the same.
But then I remember once I leave here I may very well never be coming back. And I imagine that when I get home, I will miss it here and my new friends far more than I miss home right now, because I don’t have a return ticket to Europe. I try to avoid the time that I spend looking forward to being home because I know once I’m there, I’ll just want to come back.
Basically, all of these fleeting moments combined, just make me wish I could combine to two lives and two places and have a perfect, made up, best of both worlds. Don’t we all imagine “the perfect world”?
So let me explain the title. This originated because I couldn’t think of the right word and in the process, ended up coming up with some acronyms. The one that seemed to best describe the feeling was
HSWOAWTGHRN-HomeSick WithOut Actually Wanting To Go Home Right Now…Or just
HWWTGH – Homesick Without Wanting To Go Home. But that has no vowels and there for is way harder to say. So I did some revising and settled on,
HOWTAGH – Homesick (with)Out Wanting To Already Go Home. I know it’s a stretch but try saying it out loud while imagining feeling the way I described above. It’ll do.
Feel free to send me better ideas!
Angers at night.
Emily
(Title – John Fogerty)
I am trying really hard not to hold a grudge against the pilot that flew us away from Dublin, Ireland. But it’s hard. The past week had been one of my best vacations ever and I was not exactly looking forward to going back to France and starting class. Writing that makes me feel so much more guilty than I already do. I should be ecstatic to go back to the country I chose to study abroad in and should be excited to get back to studying the language. I suppose to clarify; exactly what I was not looking forward to was sitting in class instead of hiking or exploring and feeling timid when needing to talk to the less friendly French people in my second language instead of the overly helpful Irish people in English. I did, however, miss speaking French and enjoying French meals with my host family.
Getting back was really weird. It was an interesting adjustment. When we first got to Ireland it was hard to remember we could speak English, yet it wasn’t home. Returning to France was interesting as well because we were going back to something familiar, yet still not home. Ireland is more similar to the States so that was a quick adjustment. And actually, since we are comfortable with Angers, that shift was fairly quick as well. What was particularly strange to come home to was everything being the same except having a different roommate. Here we have our own room and we know our host parents, etc. but there was a new face and a missing face. Real classes started the very next day and that was going to be yet another change to swallow. It’s amazing how starting over so many times so close together wears you out. It is comforting to know that when I get officially home, people already know me and I know them.
On day 1, we got up, got dressed and ate breakfast as usual. Then the three of us, now Maddy instead of Brittany, walked to the tram and caught it with perfect timing.
This is us. On the tram. Making horrible faces has become a common practice. Obviously this wasn’t taken on this first day that I mentioned, but it seemed fitting to include here.
The rest of the day was mostly orientation that got me excited to be back and got my French brain working again and allowed some time to exchange travel stories with friends. A hurtle that I hadn’t anticipated was mixing new friends with old. I had been really excited to meet the new AHA students and feel as though I had a “group” or at least some more fellow Oregonians because many of the other Americans during September came with groups from their schools. However, these students have been in Angers since the beginning of October, and while I was gallivanting around in Ireland on vacation, they all had orientation and bonding time. Now I, as well as the other September program students, have returned and there is a divide that I felt stuck in the middle of. I’m eager for classes to get sorted out and for the new AHA arrivals to meet and click with the other students I met in September.
Here’s to having a great semester, getting the correct credits, seeing some cool places, meeting more cool people and learning a cool language!
Day two was better. I’m getting closer to a conclusion on which classes to take with the appropriate balance of desire to learn the subject and credit need. I also was able to meet more of the new AHA students! On an entirely unrelated note, I desperately need some water proof shoes. And just a highlight from the day, attempting to explain Sour Cream in French to our host parents.
*Later*
It is now the end of week two since returning to Angers. The first week of classes was just a trial run of testing out which classes we thought we might want to take. It was nice that it wasn’t quite official school yet so I didn’t have too much homework, thus time to get to know the others. Lunch is no longer provided, so now I just buy groceries to store in the AHA office and get to eat in the lounge with the others. It’s really nice to have a place to go during breaks and a fridge because I save time and money. Another thing that we came to find is that having white skin is a minority in our classes of international students. The Chinese students outnumber the rest of us combined.
Week two was our first sample of the now routine life. Finally! A schedule that will stay the same! I’m not taking too many hours because I want to have time to explore the city and do other things while I’m here and not spend all of my time in class or doing homework. It was really hard to decide on which electives I wanted.
Here is what I ended up with:
-I have the regular “Langue” class which is just appropriate level, general learning like 301 or 202 or something like those.
– Comprehension Orale – basically listening and understanding practice. For some reason, that is one of my biggest struggles here so I hope that class will help. The teacher is fantastic!
-Expression Theatrale – Acting! This is like acting class in French! So much fun. I am the only Caucasian person in this entire class which I’ve never experienced before either. I’m really enjoying not only practicing acting techniques, but learning French and practicing pronunciation at the same time!
-Grammar – Because mine is horrible.
-Finally, my culture class. This was a difficult decision. History of France, Art History and France au Quotidian (general daily life) are the classes offered by the school, all of which sounded interesting! Also, my study abroad program, offers two courses with a visiting professor just for AHA students. I settled on Regional Cultures and Languages with the visiting professor. This class is unfortunately taught in English and at lunch time but there is an additional discussion hour in a café for speaking French. I’ve already learned a ton about the local divisions and sections within France.
A couple high lights from the first two weeks of October:
Listen to this. One Friday evening (the 12th of Oct.), I went to see a movie. IN Angers! So that means the movie was in French. Plus, it was a sequel to a movie I hadn’t seen. Sounds like I’m doomed right? Well, guess what? I understood! It happened to be an action movie which helped….a lot (Taken 2). I’m just so excited that I went to a movie in French and left without permanently damaged self-esteem! It was super strange and kind of distracting however since it was an American movie and US places and the lips were saying English words. I was willing the voice to be speaking English. But once I got past that. It was great. It was pretty much exactly like going to a theater in America except everything was in French, people were quieter and the seats were way comfier.
The following Sunday, Carina and I went ice-skating in the Angers rink!
Carina is a great teacher 🙂
Let me tell you, French boys know how to make the best out of a few hours of free skate time. So entertaining! Hockey and jumps and races AND break dancing! Seriously, tiny french boys break dancing in hockey skates on ice. Then miss Carina Wade became a celebrity by doing fancy figure skating turns and such! All of that entertainment for 6 euros. So much for there being nothing but Church and McDonald’s open on Sundays in Europe! 😀
Luckily the weekend had been pretty restful because class from 9-2:30 with no lunch break on a Monday is a long haul. But having the whole afternoon off is wonderful! Monday the 15th I managed to make a hair cut appointment for the next day! I am pretty sure we were on the same page about what I was asking for but I guess I’ll find out after it’s trimmed.
Before
After. (But it never looks like this when I do it. I don’t have a hair dryer here).
Lost in Translation:
Sometimes I want to complain that the extremes of having good French speaking/understanding days and bad French days are hard on my self-esteem, but then I decide not to curse it and just appreciate that the good days exist!
Example of the week, I tried to explain (in French) to two Chinese boys, in from of the whole class of other Asian students that my eyes change colors. They were not satisfied with my response to their inquiries of “how?!” and “why?!”. I was at a loss.
Later however, I had an experience that was not lost. I got to compare the American capital cursive letters to the French capital cursive letters while talking to a French man on the tram whose father lived, worked and died in Eugene!
So, after a bit of déjà vu starting over again in the same place doing the same things, and going through orientation with the new students and meeting new people in a familiar place, I’ve settled in and gotten comfortable with the changes and even felt like the expert once or twice!
After Ice-skating we walked part way home and enjoyed the sunset.
Bisous
Emily
