so its been two years since the land of enchanment...
I was strolling through Gastown the other day clutching some interchangeable white girl latte and struggling with my umbrella in a bid to protect myself from the Vancouver drizzle when I suddenly thought to myself.
how the hell did I end up here?
I never had any intention of moving across the world for the sake of travel and adventure. I had some ideas about moving to Canberra after finishing University to pursue a career in the public service, or possibly Melbourne to try my luck at broadcast journalism, but mostly the plan was to stay in Perth, stay with my boyfriend at the time, and travel after I’d begun to establish a livelihood for myself.
And that doesn’t sound like half a bad plan.
So what changed?
How did I go from a career orientated, success driven person, to a starry-eyed, restless traveller who ran away to Canada the second she could afford too.
Simple, its because I studied abroad.
You’ve probably met exchange students in your classes. They’re the ones with the interesting accents and antidotes - whose cultural experiences are so different from yours they could probably teach you more than your professors. Who take a little longer during oral presentations because thinking on your feet in a second language is harder than it sounds. And who usually look a little worse for wear most mornings after one too many frothies at the Uni tavern.
Well let me tell you, being one of those students is the greatest experience you’ll ever had.
I spent my semester abroad at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, USA.
It gives you time.
You know those travel itinareys where you get to spend two weeks away visiting 36 different places with about three hours in each spot? When studying abroad your given at least four months in one location which gives you time to explore and understand the place you’ve chosen to study. I have now travelled all over New Mexico - from the white sands of White Sands, to the alien swamped streets of Roswell, to the ski slopes surrounding Taos.
It jolts you out of you comfort zone.
As I wrote at the beginning of this post, I had begun to plan life after uni. Things were starting to look relatively settled. Now I have to stress that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being responsible and dreaming of a life that involves someone you love and staying in the same place. But studying abroad certainly puts your life back home in perspective. Living internationally shows you just how much of the world is out there and how little of it you’re yet to see. Try coming home and settling down after that.
it teaches you the value of being non-commital.
plan to have no plan! I bought a return ticket with a six month gap in between. Spontanaetiy is a great way to travel. rather then these over-planned, cliched tourist friendly trips, do stupid things at the last minute and remember them forever. How else do you think I ended up buying a 1998 Ford Windstar standard isse soccor mum van with six other exchnage students and driving across the US with it.
its a once in a life opportunity to travel with support.
Ok this justification may not apply to everyone who chooses to study abroad, because some choose to go through private institution as opposed to their university and others come from countries where your more likely to spot a ukelele playing unicorn then get governemnt funded finacial support to study abroad. I was extremely privledged to recieve several scholarships which allowed me to say yes to pretty much everything. Without that help exhcange would not have been possible, and I very much doubt I would have done any international travel at all
it teaches you how to travel alone.
DO NOT GO ON EXCHANGE WITH A CLOSE FRIEND. It defeats the whole purpose of the experience. The friends I made in New Mexico were more than that. We became each others family. We had to, we didn’t have anyone else! And now every year I get to commerate the time twenty-five of crammed into a stretch limo and drove up and down teh Vegas strip, or how one of my friends was nearly shot after hitch-hiking with what only can be described as a gun-toting all american redneck.
You can never get back time so use it wisely. don’t ever say something is too expensive or too hard or too crazy, and never ever ever compare institutional education with life experience. You will always learn so much from both. Peaaaaceeee. Edit: I found this draft I must have written it in around September 2014 but it’s pretty great. Will be putting it on my other blog ‘thesassyeclectic’ as an original post but I will leave it here too xoxoxo