Today is my 10th day in Madrid and I am in no way disappointed!! I am going to try to recap the past ten hectic days with clarity!
I left for Madrid on Tuesday January 8th. My flight was suppose to depart at 8:25pm but due to weather conditions and someone checking a bag and then not actually boarding the plane, we did not leave until 10:50pm. Those 2 hours and 25 minutes did not seem like a big deal in Dallas but when I was running through London Heathrow trying not to miss my next flight to Madrid, I realized why everyone else on the plane seemed bitter. Luckily I made my flight just in the nick of time. The first night we, all those studying abroad in Spain through USAC, stayed in a hotel because orientation was held at the hotel on Thursday January 8th and 9th. Orientation was boring but helpful. We went on a mini walking tour of Madrid, talked about social graces in Spain, how to be a polite stranger in your host families home, and how to work the metro system as part of the orientation on Thursday. On Thursday at 5:35pm my host mother Paloma, came and picked me up from the airport! She speaks english very well and has really helped me get accustomed to life here. My first night here I Skyped my parents and little sister, Kennedy, as well as a few of my friends. We had another full day of orientation on Friday January 9th. On Friday we took the Spanish placement test and selected our classes. I got placed in track II out of four and I am taking a drawing class. Saturday I went on a scavenger hunt with students in the USAC group. The most exciting place we went to on our hunt was a Market, Market de Ventas! It was HUGE, 3 floors of food! Shinyoung, a girl in my scavenger hunt group, and I vowed to go back and shop and we did on Monday after class!!
Classes started on Monday January 14th. Unlike Loyola, you do not get to choose the time of your classes here, they are predetermined..My class starts at 9:20am. I am not, by any means, a morning person. The school is 50 minutes to 1hour away from my house so I have to wake up around 7am. I was not quite used to the time change on Monday, but as the week progressed waking up got harder and harder. The good news is that naps are very common here! They are called siestas! So every day after school I come home and take a nap 🙂
Besides going to school, I went to the Market with Shinyoung, she is from Korea by the way, explored the city a little bit, and went to this wonderful place called San Gines Chocolateria with some friends. Like star grill there are places that stay open really late for people who..like to eat early in the morning. Here they have a place where they serve churros con chocolate! I had never had a churro before and definitely would never have thought to dip one in chocolate! Needless to say I will be going back.
That sums up what I have done here so far, now I would like to share little experiences and realizations I have had.
The metro is extremely efficient. The trains come very often, they are clean and well lit.
There is a lot of petty theft but not a lot of major crime, which is a plus.
You do not invite people to your house, you go out and hangout. That being said, there is a lot to do and a lot of places to go to hangout.
People are always walking, and it seems everyone has a dog.
Breakfast is around 7-9am, lunch is some time between 2-4pm and dinner is between 9:30 and 11pm.
There is a period during the day where most shops close down. I am not talking about “little shops” I am talking about the pharmacies, the book stores, the markets, the banks, and some of the restaurants, it becomes ghost town. The shops re-open around 5 and stay open as late as 10pm.
You do not smile at someone you do not know, nor do you complement someone you do not know. It is just not done here. This makes train rides very awkward. Also, it is OKAY to stare at people. I am not talking about a glance, I mean the full on “I am judging you” stare. When you greet someone you MUST kiss them on both cheeks, if you do not YOU are strange and weird. You do not under any circumstances shake someones hand.
Electricity is very expensive here so the Spanish have perfected conserving it. Here are some examples:
-Every time I leave my room, if only for a second, I MUST turn off my light.
-Almost all lights are sensor lights so they automatically go off when no one is around
-On the metro not all doors open at each stop, there is either a button or a lever on each door that is used to manually open the doors.
-My host family unplugs chargers from the outlets when they are done using them
Once again, insomnia strikes me. It is roughly 5 A.M.right now in Ho Chi Minh City. I’m happy to report that all of us Loyola students who left Chicago on Thursday afternoon have made it without incident to the Vietnam Center.
After a grueling 20+ hr flight, terrible airline food, and a brief layover in Hong Kong, we were able to meet up with our Vietnamese counterparts by 1 AM! Having been restless for most of the journey, several of us had, and still have our sleep cycles thrown off (yours truly in particular). Luckily, some of the Vietnamese students, including my roommate were of the same mind and were more than willing to lead us out on an early morning adventure.
We traveled to the Backpacker’s District, which is known to stay open late and cater to expatriates. There we settled down at one of the street-side restaurants and indulged ourselves in plates of delicious broken rice and grilled pork. Weary travelers always find respite in warm food and conversation.
Eventually, we trekked back to the guesthouse. However, restless as ever, I struggle to catch enough sleep for orientation tomorrow.
I hope this is true, and if it is then I am possibly one of the most learnèd 20- year olds on the planet. Or, at least, in Loyola’s study abroad program.
My stay in Santiago started in a very… interesting manner. And what I mean by ‘interesting’ is a 5-hour stay in the airport. Think Tom Hanks in ‘The Terminal’.
Mind you, this situation was one completely of my own making, as these kinds of things usually are. It started with me leaving my passport in Chicago and needing to get a new one when I came to stay with my family in New Jersey after fall semester ended and I vacated my apartment.
Lesson 1: DO NOT LOSE PASSPORT
I received my passport a little less than a week before my Chilean adventure was to start and due to the complete unresponsiveness of the NYC branch of the Chilean Consulate and the unfortunate vacation period of the person who approves passports in the Philadelphia Chilean Consulate branch, I was unable to receive my student visa before coming to Chile. I couldn’t bear the thought of waiting to come to Chile, so I decided to come as a tourist and get my student visa after getting here.
Some countries require tourist visas, but in the case of Chile, tourists are able to stay without a visa for 30 days, and only have to pay a reciprocity fee (which is a fee that the government of Chile charges incoming tourists from countries who charge their citizens. Example: US charges Chileans $160, and therefore so too does Chile to the citizens of the US).
So as to be able to pay this fee, I made sure to have $200 in cash with me when I travelled. This would have been perfect, except that when I got to the front of the checking baggage line in JFK airport, I was told that I would not be able to bring my longboard on board (no pun intended) with me, as I had been able to do with Southwest. My only options were to get rid of my board (trash? random donation to the people behind me in line? who knows) or pay, as my father was long gone by then. How much was the fee you’d like to know? $180.
Lesson 2: Be ABSOLUTELY SURE about the rules regarding special baggage.
addendum: or just…. don’t bring a longboard.
As you might have guessed, I paid said fee. With the $200 meant for the reciprocity fee. Once I got to my gate I called my parents, knowing that this would be the last time I would be able to do so until probably Chile a day later. Because now the problem lay in my lack of money. Because, you see, I only had about $50 in my bank account at this time, as my parents were going to transfer the other money in two days later on Saturday. The best my parents could do was promise that they would try to get to the bank on their lunch break tomorrow to transfer some money into my account. And that was the last time I would be able to contact my parents for a long while.
Lesson 3: CARRY EXTRA CASH!
12 hours, a rerun of ‘Pretty Woman’, two in-flight meals, and a layover later, I touched down in Santiago, Chile. What a beautiful country! And now to see if my father was able to get to the bank on his lunch break… too bad we had thought that Chile was two hours behind EST rather than two hours ahead, which left my father with the idea that he had until around 4PM EST to get to the bank rather than 12 PM EST (I touched down at 1:45 PM … ‘Chile time’).
Lesson 4: KNOW THE TIME DIFFERENCE… WITH CERTAINTY
After I tried paying with my debit card (twice, about an hour apart from each other), I knew something was wrong. And not only was I stuck in the airport unable to leave the section cordoned off by the Chilean police, but my host mother, Yali, was also waiting for me outside, and now, cellphone-less, I had no way to contact her. Worse, even if I had had a phone, I didn’t have her number.
Lesson 5: KNOW HOW TO CONTACT SOMEONE IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG
I had my United States OIP coordinators number and an iPod touch with a calling app, but unfortunately I was unable to access the wi-fi, and the only place with wi-fi happened to be in the departing section of the airport. With my stumbling spanish I was able to explain my problem to the guards and was let through to the departing area. I found the VIP Salon, where there was free wi-fi, and beggared my way in.
I started sending e-mails to everyone I could think of, as well as sending my Chilean mother a message through facebook (the means through which we had been communicating) saying that I would be fine and would take a taxi to her address when my parents were able to transfer funds into my account. As I was sending this I received an e-mail from my father saying that he would be unable to reach the bank until the next day, Saturday. And so I started to settle in to spend the night in this VIP lounge.
However this was not to be: the people from the program were having none of that. I know this because at that point Yali (well, the coordinator for my program in Chile using Yali’s Facebook from cell phone of my coordinator… yes it’s all very confusing I know) reached out to me through a Facebook message telling me to STAY WHERE I WAS SOMEONE WILL COME TO GET YOU.
The program, the woman told me, would lend me the $100 I needed (I had at the time $20 left on cash and $60 in my bank account) and would deliver it to me by one of the airport personnel.
Aren’t you happy that my story’s almost over?
I think that I would have appreciated that as well.
Except… remember how I wasn’t really supposed to be in the lounge? Because of this, when the airport personnel came to find me, she was told that I couldn’t possibly be in there. So after another hour of searching, they said my name over the loud speaker and I was able to find the woman, who gave me the $100 passed on to her from my program coordinator.
DONE NOW?
Spoiler alert: Nope.
When I returned to the window to pay the fee, the woman, who was the only person in this ordeal who spoke a good amount of English, shared with me a look of amused sympathy. Which then turned into a look of apprehension and regret.
Because, as she told me, you couldn’t pay half on a card and half with cash.
And where was the nearest ATM (‘cajiera’, as I learned that day)?
It was inside the ‘country’, where I could not yet go.
Of course it was.
So I waited in line for the Chilean police, as I would be able to get to the ATM if one of them were to accompany me.
The man to whom I explained my situation acted just as most of the people there I had met acted; with concern for me and with a wonderfully helpful manner. However no amount of helpfulness could have made me understand that gosh darn cajiera (cah-hee-erra).
Lesson 6: BE FAMILIAR WITH THE MONETARY SYSTEM (clarification: VERY familiar!)
Because that cajiera was NOT in dollars, and furthermore, it kept telling me that I had MUCH less money that I had (most likely because it was saying something like $30000 pesos and I was thinking ‘$30.00’.
Eventually (after three failed tries which left me near tears) I was able to take out [what I thought] was $20. It was also in pesos, which I wasn’t able to comprehend at that moment! I was very, very scared, because having only $20 more meant that I still would be unable to leave the airport.
I returned [YET AGAIN] to the register to try to pay the fee, and my new friend Mr. Chilean Policeman came with me to help. The woman looked at my money and said [to my relief] that there were $50! But then… “I’m sorry, but you can’t pay half in pesos.”
And so I climbed the stairs once more and Mr. Chilean Policeman (whose name is Hector, if you’re interested) handled the transaction for me.
I was finally able to pay. What relief I felt! And after some paperwork, I left Hector behind with this:
“Querría decir algo, pero no sé como… en español. Gracias. Por todo de tu ayuda.”
My grammar was horrible, but I got enough right that it was comprehensible. I wanted to get across what his help had meant to me.
And he knew.
Lesson 7: One person can change someone’s experience completely.
Without Hector, I wouldn’t have been able to change my dollars into pesos so easily or more importantly, been able to get through my ‘journey’ without a heart attack. He listened to me worry aloud [in very bad Spanish] and ask questions to calm me down, and went faaar out of his was to help me. I’ll always remember that experience.
I’ll always remember, also, my Chilean mother waiting for me when I finally exited out into the waiting area (Well, I exited the wrong way at first, but really, would you expect anything different of me? Eventually I got to her.) The first words I said to this wonderful, wonderful woman holding the sign was “LO SIENTO.” I think you probably know what this means.
The first thing she did after recognizing me?
She hugged me. “Mi hija!”
Most people might think that my 5 hour ‘journey’ in the airport was something to look back upon with horror, and while I can understand that sentiment, I also think that there is no better way that I could have been introduced to the absolute best part of Chile: the Chileans themselves.
Lesson 8 (and the moral of my story): You can learn a lot when you screw up.
Whether you learn that it’s important to double check everything, or you learn that people are a lot more wonderful than you expected. Both are valid, and both are things that I will remember for the rest of my life.
I’m including a picture of my Chilean mother, Yali (who says she ‘labored for 5 hours birthing me, her hija’) and some of my wonderful friends who came to eat ‘onces’ with us on my second day in Santiago.
Yali (mi madre chilena) and some of my wonderful LUC/UAH friends!
Finally in ROME! It’s Thursday afternoon and it has been a week since I arrived in Rome. It has been a dream of mine to study abroad and now that I am here I can’t believe it! (IS THIS REAL LIFE?)
Before coming to the John Felice Center I came to Rome with my grandparents, my two sisters and my three cousins. I had just graduated high school and my grandparents took us to Rome for a few days because my Papa wanted us to see and experience where my Nana grew up. It was an amazing experience and I was very fortunate to go with them, but now I have more time to experience the Italian culture.
So far I have loved everything Italy has to offer! I love how the culture focuses on being in the moment with friends and not worry about what’s going to happen next, which is a nice and much needed change for me. JFRC organized a neighborhood dinner near the school and our table sat there for 3 hours. We enjoyed some amazing food, talked about what we’ve done thus far and where we would like to travel. If you do come here (WHICH YOU BETTER) I highly recommend attending that meal.
Also, the SLAs (Student Life Assistants) and the full-year students give the best and craziest advice. They don’t tell you where to go or what to see first, but rather want you to figure it out. I did that on Saturday with a group of friends after the tour of the Colosseum and the Roman Forum (INCREDIBLE) and we had a great time! We didn’t plan ahead at all. We just walked down different alleys and streets and got familiar with this incredible city.
Experiencing the food, the monuments, and the Italian culture has been absolutely amazing. I love everything so far! This weekend we are going on an orientation trip to Campania, aregion in southern Italy, and then Brussels, Belgium next weekend!
It is less than 12 hours until departure, and I cannot sleep.
The last week and a half back in Chicago have been phenomenal. I’ve never had such a chance to appreciate my surroundings and my friends as I have during this time.
In a way, it is almost somewhat bittersweet and a little bit cruel that the Vietnam Center students leave so late compared to those at Rome or Beijing. However, I know that a great adventure awaits me, and I hope that everyone is ready to come along for the ride.
For now, as I count down the hours, I’ll be cleaning, packing, and preparing myself. In 40-some odd hours, I’ll be back to my parents’ birthplace.
The rest of Loyola is back on their grind, and I’m at home in the frozen Midwest for the next two weeks until I can finally land in sunny Spain. Thank goodness for Netflix.
Somewhere in that period of time I should probably find a suitcase and maybe pack and brush up on my Spanish and find a gift for my host mom. Also, Netflix.
I’ve been planning on going to Spain since before I even got to college, and I’ve been stalking Granada on Wikipedia, lonely planet, Google Maps, architecture websites, etc… I’ve been excited about going before I even applied. But now that I have all this free time to think, I’m starting to get a little nervous. Will the moon look the same from across the Atlantic? Will my Spanish be good enough? Will my host mom and I get along? Will I miss my cat too much?
I expressed these feelings to one of my friends who studied abroad last semester and he told me that yeah, I’m going to be nervous because I’m about to go live in a country that I’ve never been to for an extended period of time. But he also said that I absolutely need to do it and I’m going to have the experience of a lifetime. I don’t think that we can grow as people unless we do things that make us nervous and uncomfortable, and I know that right now it’s time for me to grow some. I believe Eve Ensler when she says that we should take trains (in this case, planes) by ourselves to places we have never been, and I believe Shiloh when they say that if I have a heart, I have a home.
Despite the fact that I’m freaking out a little (a lot), I’m reminding myself that I’m going to be in the same city as my favorite building, I’m going to be speaking a language that I love, and I’m going to be surrounded by so much beauty and knowledge I don’t know how I’ll handle it. It’s also warm there (score!). The fact that I feel nervous never ends up eclipsing the fact that I feel so lucky.
Well here I am, in limbo between Winter break and the Spring Semester. All of my friends at Loyola are already almost half way through their first week of classes, and I am procrastinating packing for a semester in Vietnam.
I leave on Thursday for the grueling trans-pacific flight and have hit the “what am I doing with my life” stage of packing. What do I bring? Am I forgetting anything? Quick! I have to go pick up something at Target! With one more full day here in Wisconsin, I am gallivanting around with my thin rain jacket, freezing while convinced that pulling out my winter jacket from the basement closet for a couple days is far too much work.
I am really excited and cannot wait to meet all of my new classmates. I have been emailing back and forth with my Vietnamese roommate, but still feel like I have not even scratched the surface of getting to know him. I actually think I am getting more nervous than excited to go, or maybe it’s just because I have an empty suitcase and a starving mind for all of the new experiences that I will have starting in less than a week.
I’ve been abroad before, but from what I have been seeing in movies, videos and reading about, Vietnam is going to be a totally new experience for me. I was at the John Felice Rome Center for both Summer 2012 sessions. That was a blast! So far while preparing for this semester though, all I can do is remember all of the memories from last summer. I cannot wait to make more.
I will check back in once I get settled into Saigon, until then, I hope everyone is having a great week!
I guess the pizza and wine days are over for now. I’m off to Asia, Vietnam to be more exact, in less than a week. Although it is nice to be home and back on familiar (comfortable?) soil, I miss being able to take the bus down the hill of Monte Mario, past the Vatican and street vendors, off to do nothing in particular. It’s so strange to drive around town and not see old churches designed by Bernini or Carlo Maderno. It’s even more strange not to see the same people every day, both strangers and friends alike. Now I’m back home, afraid to leave the house in fear of running into someone and having to make dreadful small talk. I can’t just say how much Rome meant to me or that I wasn’t ready to come back yet. Even worse, how could I accurately portray the changes I’ve made this past semester? Do people just assume you’ve matured and learned more about yourself if you’ve studied abroad? How do you connect with people who weren’t there along with you? I guess that’s part of the challenge of going abroad, being able to combine the old with the new and continue on with every day life. I think that is the part of studying abroad that requires the most strength; the life you make for yourself afterwards. I think all of us ‘Roam-ers’ are having a hard time getting back to the real world, where people eat Papa John’s and you have to pay an arm or a leg for a decent bottle of wine. No more $5 bottles. We also have to somehow be this new person that developed over seas. It would be almost worse to regress to how we were before the trip … to have the same regrets, grudges and intolerances.
While I miss Rome and my friends, I am lucky that my adventures aren’t over. Vietnam is just around the corner and it’s going to be another life altering experience. Of course, like in Rome, there will certainly be difficulties. I will miss my family and friends. I will miss Chicago as winter deepens and then warms. But this is a good time to venture out into the mysteries of the world and to learn about other people, thus yourself. Being off on your own is nothing but good for you, as you learn your own strength but also how others are necessary in their own way. You also begin to forget people who were never really your friends, realizing how important it is to maintain the healthy relationships instead of focusing on revitalizing poisonous ones.
It’s good to be home. Yet, it’s good to be away. I think I’ll be surprised by how much I’ve grown this year, when my two trips are at a close. I can’t wait to meet more enriching people, just like I did in Europe. I hope I’ll meet someone else like Joel, the man from the Congo who drove me to Brussels. Maybe I’ll meet a new hiking partner, like Sandy, who told me about her husband who had been in a horrible car crash and how she had been taking care of him for years. Meeting people with completely different backgrounds make other cultures and ways of life real. Civil wars become real when you meet someone whose parents are in the midst of it. I bet you wouldn’t know that Joel had memories of singing The Spice Girls in his childhood village in the Congo. All of these things I believe can only be learned whilst abroad. Nothing else can give you that kind of perspective. It’s never a bad thing to have more than one.
My dearest Roma, you passionate but stubborn lover. The last four months have been an emotional rollercoaster, but so are all the best relationships. When we met in August you seemed decadent, bold, moving, and overwhelming, but I’ve come to learn that there is more to you than that. From learning your history, and discovering that there is so much more to you outside the Colosseum walls, I’ve fallen in love with every hidden ruin. You taught me what real food tastes like, and I love that I can blame you for any extra kilos I’m now carrying around. I knew from the moment I first tried your suppli that we were a match made in heaven. You taught me about art, history, people, and il dolce far niente. The more I got to know you the more in love with you I fell.
Like all relationships, however, it wasn’t always butterflies and rainbows. There were times, usually when I was waiting 45 minutes in the rain for a bus to come, when I thought we should end this. There were times when I thought that I could live without you. When I was writing a paper at 2am and couldn’t order food, or when I sat down to Mensa and thought, Really? Eggplant AGAIN? Your inability to drive and park a car drives me crazy, and I often found myself wondering how you get anything done with your inefficient attitude. There were moments of struggle, for sure, but I believe that those struggles only made us stronger.
And every time, without fail, when I began to question your love, your beauty, you always found a way to prove it to me. I would suddenly find myself watching the sunrise over the Forum, or standing in the middle of the Sistine Chapel, overwhelmed with this experience. You, Roma, move me and inspire me in ways I never thought possible. And, more importantly, you encourage me to grow and change. You helped me become a stronger, independent person and I am a better woman today because I met you.
But now comes the time to say goodbye. Although I would never want to leave you I must go. I can’t imagine a life without this city, and don’t know how I’m going to make it without your charming streets, your amazing food, and your passion that livens up even the hardest of hearts. These four months have been the most incredible four months of my life, and I’ll never forget them. Thank you for being the most amazing city I could have ever called home. I’ll miss you everyday, but I’ll take the memories and lessons I’ve learned with me wherever I go, and know that we will be reunited again soon. I threw my coin into the Trevi to prove it.
Con amore,
Mary
“Preach always, and if necessary, use words.” Pilgrimage to Assisi
It’s funny how God has our lives come full circle sometimes. Seven years ago, when I was in the eighth grade, my choir came to Rome over Christmas break to sing not only in Rome and Vatican City, but also to take a pilgrimage and sing in Assisi. Seven years to the month later I found myself once again in Assisi. The same place where my love for Italy began when I was 13 years old would be my last trip of my semester of a lifetime.
In a lot of ways, the trip was overwhelming for me. Not only is it the end of my semester, which is upsetting enough, and not only did I get to spend the day in this incredibly holy town, but I could also picture my younger self in Assisi. I remember climbing down the hill to the bus in the sleet and snow, I remember walking through all these churches in a sea of red choir robes, and I remember how it felt to be on the most exciting trip of my life, as I once again find myself on an incredible journey. It was truly a religious experience.
The trip was, in every sense, a pilgrimage. Lead by Father Al (the liveliest priest I’ve ever had the priviledge to know) we began the day visiting the Basilica of St. Francis, built to commemorate him and to house his body. We walked through Piazza del Commune, where St. Francis stripped naked and gave himself over to Christ. In the same piazza is the home of St. Chiara (Clare). Between St. Francis and St. Chiara the entire town is a shrine to preserving every moment of their lives. We church hopped through the town, seeing relics of the saints and even praying at the cross that spoke to St. Francis (how amazing is it that it’s still in the town!) We saw the rose bushes that St. Francis jumped in to escape Satan, which now no longer grow thorns, and the doves that for years haven’t left a statue of St. Francis, next to the rose garden. It was incredible how with every turn you could feel the Holy Spirit in the presence of this little town.
That night we enjoyed a huge, hours long dinner in Orvieto (is there any other way to eat??) As dessert came out the fun continued, as Father Al and I brought out the guitars and lead the group of 30+ students, faculty, and seminarians in a Christmas sing-a-long, that we continued on the bus on the ride home. I couldn’t have pictures a better trip to wrap up my semester. The day was the epitome of everything I love about this semester: Faith, food, friends, and this incredibly community we call the John Felice Rome Center.
