Things I’ve Learned While Abroad
Hi again! Blogging my life abroad has started to feel almost normal? I have had a lot of time to reflect on some important topics during our excursion to Cambodia, so to make this easy on all of us I am going to make a list of the things I’ve learned as a whole while studying abroad. Hopefully I can help inform anyone thinking of studying abroad, and specifically anyone wanting to come to the Vietnam Center!
- You learn conversions for money in a snap
After our trip to Thailand, where the baht is used, and our excursion to Cambodia, where the US dollar as well as the riel is used, you learn to become a money saving master. The exchange rate for each currency is different, but budgeting has become second nature, so I don’t have to keep going to ATMs and racking up those international fees. The amazing thing about being in Southeast Asia is that places you only could’ve dreamed of visiting are just an hour flight away instead of a 20-hour flight. I do keep a small amount from each different currency I have just as little keepsakes which I find something I am going to love to have to look back on.
- We never really learned about Southeast Asia
Our recent excursion to Cambodia really made this point very clear to me. The Cambodian genocide is something not mentioned in most general education classes, but is a very important historical tragedy that I recommend everyone read into. We spent our trip visiting Phnom Penh and Siem Reap where we visited the historically important spots in each city which I am super grateful for. The two sites we visited in Phnom Penh were the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the Choeung Ek Killing Field Genocidal Center which become not only a sobering moment, but a reflective one. Speaking to the tour guides and people we met allowed us to learn more information about Cambodia in a handful of days than I knew in my entire life. When Loyola said this experience would be immersive, they weren’t kidding (in the best of ways).
- You learn new things everyday
My time here has showed me that I actually am learning and not just running around Saigon as a 19-year-old American with no direction. I am finding ways to incorporate what I’ve learned slowly into my life. I have also learned so much from our BK partner students and would listen to them speak non-stop about their lives if they wanted me to. It’s amazing to pick up on things you never really knew about Vietnam even after being half way through the semester. I just found out I’ve been telling my taxi drivers the wrong way to turn since I got the two Vietnamese words mixed up for right and left (I should’ve enrolled in that Vietnamese class huh?).
- No pain no gain
As mentioned, we also went to Siem Reap while in Cambodia and went to the Angkor Archeological Park. We woke up at 4am (yes you read it correctly!) to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world. It was a lot of walking and tuk tuking (motorbikes with an attached ack for up to 4 people to sit) and standing in the sun, but it was all worth it. We got to venture around a few of the temples including Angkor Wat, Bayon, and Ta Prohm (The temple in Tomb Raider!). If we didn’t get our lazy bones up that bright and early we wouldn’t have spent so much time seeing temples almost a thousand years old and the carving that looks like a dinosaur in Tam Prohm.
(The dinosaur carving *X Files theme song*)
I don’t think I am going to stop learning as long as I’m here, and as the days roll by I do get nervous to come home. I think I am going to miss living and studying in Vietnam a lot (and the 22-hour flight back has already given me nightmares aha). I definitely know I am going to fall victim to reverse culture shock, but I do know I am going to get myself back to Vietnam one day again.
