#bu study abroad

[hereiamwandering]

“ Matt enters and Luke exits” 

Alternatively known as that time we collectively decided to screw all the slideshows and power points that told us not to eat street food, and ate something we don’t even know how to say in Arabic. 

[humansofcas-blog]

Danica Drezner (CAS ‘17)

International Relations Major, Transfer Student, Future Social Entrepreneur, Vagabond, Optimist, Ant Eater

“If you could get paid to do anything for the rest of your life, what would you do?”

“Frolic. Just travel and frolic the world. I love talking to people, like talking to strangers and just picking up conversations. if I can get like an Anthony Bourdain gig, where I’m just hopping around places and always meeting new people, that would be great. My favorite part of traveling is being completely immersed. I love living with a host family. So if I can travel and meet people from all over the world, I think that would probably be it. I love making friends and talking to people.” 

“Is it difficult leaving your family for a while?” 

“It’s terrible, but it’s really easy for me. The thing is, my family has always been pretty split. When I graduated high school, my mom moved to Pennsylvania with my twin baby brothers, and my 13-year-old sister, and my step dad, but my dad is still in Las Vegas - where I’m from - and so is my grandma and all of my friends from high school. My grandma always called me the vagabond child because I’ve always been hopping around everywhere, so I kind of just have a vagabond spirit in that sense.” 

“What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done?” 

“I mean, I ate ants last week, if that counts? I’m happy to admit that was my first time. We were in the amazon rain forest and they have these ants that taste like lemons, living within the branches and these trees are notorious for killing other trees around them, I don’t really know the details of the ecology... Our tour guide broke a branch in half and there were these little ants living inside and he’s like ‘Do you wanna try it?’ and I said ‘Sure,’ so I dabbled in some jungle cuisine last week.” 

“What are you most grateful for?” 

“Being surrounded by amazing energy all the time. Like great people and being able to be in an environment where I really feed off of other great people and where I have great opportunities to have experiences in life and where I really get to live it. My mantra is ‘What a time to be alive.’ So I think I’m grateful to be alive. I think that’s what it is.

“How do you view today’s society?”

“I view society today as confused. We are moving into a globalized world where everyone is a little bit more connected so we get to learn more about each other now. I’m just an optimistic person, so it breaks my heart to see all of the tragedies going on around the world. I keep up with the news, I’m an international relations major, so... hearing all these things, like the terrorist attacks in Paris, what’s going on with the Syrian Refugees, it breaks my heart. But I think that those occasions blind us from the true empathy that really is in the world, and just the little acts of kindness and the stuff that we don’t get to see everyday that you just see walking around, I’m very optimistic about the world in that regard. Seeing actions such as the climate change conference that was in Paris recently, and seeing people voice up against political actions and seeing our generation, with the political campaigns today, seeing more people our age voicing their opinions and saying what they want to see changed in the world, it makes me more optimistic. I like to see the beauty in things as much as I can. 

“What’s a struggle that you’ve overcome in your life?”

“Being a transfer student and coming into this school without the freshman experience was a hardship because I actually transferred from a community college, so I guess I never got that experience. So I know it’s a struggle really trying to put yourself out there in a place no one knows that you are a new student because everyone already knows their groups. Just by being social, putting myself out there, joining clubs, introducing myself and talking to people in class, I was able to overcome it and just really integrate my way into the community and it was awesome because now even though that was something that was difficult for me, at the time, I got through it and then ended up being a peer mentor through FY101 for the transfer section and was able to help other transfer students the following year.” 

[peridoesstuff]

Shanghai

Boston University, my home institution, has an exchange program with Fudan University in Shanghai. One of my friends, Krishna, just so happened to be studying at Fudan while I was in Shanghai, so we met up and he showed me as much of the city as a day allowed. 

The first challenge was getting to Fudan. After probably a half an hour of trying to hail a cab one finally stopped for me (I was later told that cab drivers will often ignore foreigners looking for a cab). The ride was terrifying! Not only were all rules of the road completely ignored but the roads themselves were designed in a way to make it even more unsafe; for example, the left turn lane was all the way on the right, so when it came time to turn left, you had to cross all of the forward-moving traffic. Very scary.

But I made it to Fudan in one piece and I found Krishna and all was okay. He and his friend were to start their internships later that week and wanted to figure out where the building was so we wondered around the financial district for a while. While there we went to the top of the bottle opener tower, not sure of its actual name, but it has a great view of the city.

And probably one of the most scenic toilets in the world:

After we wandered around the Bund.

Krishna made me go inside of a Walmart we happened to pass. It was a literal zoo! So big, so loud, sensory overload!

The subway also has digital tvs where the screens move with the train. Its hard to describe but was kind of amazing. 

Thanks for showing me around Krishna!

[ilfuturo]

You Are Here

This is entirely embarrassing and entirely expected but I have been home for three weeks-ish now and haven’t even gotten around to wrapping things up. I think I have enough unfinished business with this blog that I won’t be able to really tie it all together until next week (cue the torches and pitchforks). The thing is, there’s a lot about being abroad, living abroad, studying abroad that doesn’t hit you or sink in until you’re home. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve really given myself the opportunity to let it sink in yet. It’s hard because coming home and realizing everything is more or less the way you left it is so easy compared to leaving and having to adjust to everything all at once. I mean, how many times can I talk about living in a new place and adjustment, really, I know I’m a broken record but it was a big part of my time there. Maybe I’m a broken record all the time but hey you get what you pay for and this blog is free. Currently I’m sitting at my job, being a receptionist for Hillel again, I’m sipping on Arizona Green Tea, and about to eat a prepared salad I bought at City Co across the street. I still get confused when I hear background conversations in English; the other day I was riding the T and I heard Spanish, THAT was surreal. I wish there were more opportunities to speak Italian and I know it’s mostly my own fault for not being able to work it into my daily routine but it’s not as easy as I thought it would be. Mostly I just can’t come to terms with the fact that Padova has changed to “there”. It’s no longer “here”, “home”, “Paola and Bruno’s”, it’s “the place I studied abroad in”, “twenty minutes from Venice”, “north east Italy”. How did a city that encompassed my entire life for 4 months turn into so little? Coming home means catching up and so many of my friends have asked the traditional “How was Italy?!” question. While I appreciate the sentiment, that question is very unclear. Like, I don’t know, how WAS Italy? Gr8 q. Was it happy? Was it sad to see me leave? Was it clean, dirty, full of rats (just the Trevi Fountain was, don’t worry)? In all seriousness, I never know what to say to that. I give them the same flippant kind of response their question looks for: “Oh, you know, amazing, life-changing, I miss it so much.” And they raise their eyebrows like, “Wow, it looked amazing on Instagram.” And that’s it, that’s really the full extent of our conversation because if they really wanted to hear any more I’d be forced to talk their ear off for approximately ten years. I could talk about Italy for hours on end because I lived there; for the past four months I did nothing else. Maybe I’m a victim of the typical “This one time when we were in Paris” study abroad virus, but it’s really unavoidable. Would people rather hear stories of things that happened to me half a year ago when I lived here or what is actually recent and relevant and interesting? Obviously my friends are happy to hear my stories because usually they’re so silly and insane they’ve become anecdotes at parties. But it’s also sort of sad to watch my experience boil itself down to a few funny stories I whip out for laughs. I know it’s inevitable, I know it doesn’t diminish how much I learned and grew in my time in Padova, but it’s weird to think you can go from point A to point B and all you’ll have to show for it is a handful of postcards, a photobook with 500 prints, some cute clothes, a couple gorgeous bags, dishcloths, etc. I mean maybe that’s a lot but STILL. It feels distant already and I hate that. How will I feel in twenty years? Will I have forgotten the names of all the friends I made? The bar we went to all the time? The hundreds of cute dogs I walked by every day? The piazze and streets I walked down? It makes me want to cry imagining that there’s no real way to go back. That my memories and pictures will serve as a reminder but even when I visit again it won’t be my city like it was. I am here but I was there and maybe part of me still is.

[psssssstt]

Its back and better than ever!

I have revived my travel/adventure blog. 

So follow it. 

Or else ill be sad.

http://peridoesstuff.tumblr.com/

Thanks

[ilfuturo]

Just Keep Swimming (and pretend this isn’t the end)

Ok, let’s be honest here people, I have not been the best blog keeper. I could be doing A LOT better but also I mean I’m in Italy and my laziness should be seen as a sign of cultural immersion! Right? I officially have a day and a half left here in this beautiful country and since I’m in complete and total denial, let’s rewind a little while to a little thing James Franco likes to call “spraaaang braaaayk”. I believe I left you all on the edge of your seats (as I do) with a short-ish description of our first two days in Athens! Those days of sunshine and general joy (also bicep growth and extreme muscle cramps after being a crip for a full three days) were brought to an end when we entered somewhat sunny Santorini.  For those of you that aren’t aware, Santorini is a very, very tiny Greek island that is most famous for housing Lena Kaligaris in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, aka every ‘00 teen’s dream. We flew in pretty late at night to the ONE ROOM airport (literally, one big building without any real walls, it has “six” gates or something that are actually just 6 different doors out of the same spot). It was dark, sadly, so we didn’t get a very good look at the island or the beach (so important). Instead, we found the guy from our hotel that was going to give us a ride back. I was on my crutches, so I got to ride in the front of the big van (woop woop) and then promptly witnessed out driver crash against a cement wall outside the hotel door. Fun! There was no real damage and literally no one cared so we went in to get our rooms. The hotel we stayed at was so tiny and really nice; it wasn’t far from the water and right next to the city of Fira, which is the largest on the island. We were just a short walk from the bus station, which was really the only form of transportation on the island. The first day we all woke up to sun and were in disbelief at how gorgeous everything was. We all ate quickly and excitedly got ourselves outside and to the beach! We ended up taking a taxi there and learned very quickly that taxis are cheap and really not a bad alternative to busing it everywhere we went (especially with me being a crip!). The beach was lovely, black sand, and we all spent maybe 4 hours out there tanning, walking on really hard rocks (not me!), and swimming (also not me!). Unfortunately, I was more or less a beached whale for the duration of our time there and got the loveliest sunburn :)  We found a nice restaurant for lunch, ate our weight in feta cheese, and moved on to get back home.  I feel as though I should mention how breathtaking the entire island was. When Becca, Rachel, and I round in the taxi from our hotel to the beach, we were literally in shock. Our taxi driver was like, “what, you’ve never seen the caldera before?!” And we just shook our heads. The island has this amazing section of water that is basically receiving a light hug from the land and inside there are a smatter of islands and a volcano. It was truly amazing and we were so happy we got to see it.  I have forgotten a lot of the details but also who cares at this point, so let’s fast forward to what I remember (aka all the important things)!!! We went to see the sunset that first evening because we weren’t sure the weather would provide for a nice sunset the next night. Our concierge (? not that fancy but I guess?) told us we had to get the bus to Oia so we went around 6 and grabbed it for a 7:45 sunset. We ended up being hella early but that was chill because we got to walk through Oia and see how beautiful and picture perfect it was. Word to the wise: the photographic part of Santorini is Oia. People don’t really say that much online for some reason and tend to tell you Fira is where you should go. I would say Fira is DEFINITELY the most important part of the island because it has the most stores, restaurants, hotels, etc, but Oia is by far the prettiest. All the postcards are from there and the windmill in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is there so like come on. It was pretty cold by the time sunset was like ~happening~ so I was cold and limping around in a dress, ready to go to dinner. It was GORGEOUS, also, I mean that goes without saying, but I will reiterate just how amazing it was. After sunset, we ate and went home to rest up for another day of fun in the sun! Except the next day was even colder and it started to get a little cloudy. We went to Akrotiri, the old ruins of the island that is a giant archeological dig now inside of an airport hanger, essentially. And we went to Red Beach, which sounds like the name, and was also so beautiful! The weather was not really happy but we powered through as well as we could. Oh, and how could I forget!! We went on a special boat tour to the volcano! Our concierge (?? still unclear on this) had said they had tours from Fira that would take us out to the volcano, which we could then hike, and over to the “hot springs”, which you could swim in! We decided this would be super fun and went early in the morning to grab the boat. Aside from absolute panic that Olivia was going to miss it when she in fact had gotten there 20 minutes before us, we had no problems reaching the boat. We even ran into some friends we met on the plane to Santorini! What are the odds!  Eventually, we got to the volcano which was rad as hell and Anna walked very, very slowly to keep up with me :) It was really cool and I even felt the heat from it in the steam that was coming out the top! What!!!! It was a little weird but also cool! That was where the fun promptly ended. When we got back on the boat, it started to get REALLY cold and we still had to go to the “hot springs”. We started making our way over and it began to rain. Oh my god, it was so unbearably cold and wet and they STILL MADE US STOP and wait 30 MINUTES to let people swim in the warm springs because also, fun fact, they were maybe lukewarm at most. I, of course, could not go in because of my ankle so instead I shivered on the boat, desperately trying to shield my plaster wrappings from the rain (and failing miserably). It ended up being completely awful while we waiting for everyone to jump into the freezing water, swim out and back, get on the boat, and FINALLY get back to the port. No body was happy, most people went into mild shock when they reached the cold water, and getting back to land seemed like a godsend. We all ran to the hotel, changed our clothes, showered, whatever, and ended up ordering food in for the night.  The next day did not get much better, unfortunately. It only got worse. We were scheduled to leave the next morning on a ferry at 11 am and we all woke up, packed up, and sent Rachel and Becca to the ferry-ticket office for all of us. They returned empty handed and explained that all the ferries were cancelled for the entire day. The. Entire. Day. It was the awful weather (extreme winds made choppy seas) that caused it and as a result we were quite literally stranded on the island. We had a flight for Mykonos that had been rescheduled to take us to Athens on Saturday morning and suddenly we weren’t sure if we could even get to Mykonos. We spent probably two or three hours in the hotel lobby using their wifi while we debated what to do and calculated costs. Ultimately, it was less costly for us to just change the stupid Mykonos flight AGAIN to send us from Santorini straight back to Athens on Friday morning, and gave us another day in Athens. So we booked a new hostel for that night and the next (which was really dumb because we ended up on the side of the island with the worst weather where there was quite literally one restaurant and a couple shops, nothing else) and one for the night in Athens. We moved all our crap to the new hostel, which had really big rooms and really no working wifi, and attempted to have fun while basically a hurricane was happening. I’m not gonna lie, Becca, Rachel, and I went to the restaurant down the street at night for dessert and I was a little concerned I was going to wind up dead from a fallen branch or something, It was a tad terrifying.  We survived though, thank god!!!!! We spent the extra day and a half-ish seeing Oia again and headed to some other places I honestly don’t remember very well at this point. We headed out on a teeny tiny plane from the teeny tiny (and unhelpful) airport of Santorini and found ourselves back in Athens for one last day. The hotel we stayed in was quite possibly the best of my entire time abroad and it was not expensive at all. We were all so thrilled to have a new, beautiful bed and shower, we all just crashed and spent the majority of our last day in greece shopping for souvenirs (the bane of our existences abroad).  And then we went home. It seems simple and short but it was huge and giant and I think that says a lot about study abroad in general. I’m not ready to say goodbye to Padova and the people I will miss here. I am not ready at all. 

[ilfuturo]

A Beginner’s Guide to Missing Important Events and Stuff

When you’re abroad you are not at home. This might seem obvious but you might not realize how hard it can be to watch all these important events happen to the people you love, just out of reach. It can be hard to check the news every night, looking for stories on your hometown or trying to understand what new things are important to your friends. What are they all talking about? What are the hot topics in class and at bars tonight? It’s no secret how things are going in America; everyone in Italy watches the news and sees what’s happening across the pond. It can be startling to have your host parents tell you news about your home that you didn’t even know about.  This winter there was a record breaking amount of snow in Boston. This is old news now, and increasingly unimportant with every passing day, but it was a huge deal when I first got here. In fact, I arrived in Italy two days later than we were supposed to because the blizzard delayed our flight. When I got here, I thought it was mostly going to be finishing up at home but the snow just kept coming and coming and well... I guess you don’t need me to remind you. It was a lot! Like, a LOT. And everyone I spoke to in Boston about it, or just talked to about random things, had to tell me how lucky I was and how I had “picked the perfect winter to go abroad”. I laughed and thought it was true, I was lucky to get out when I did and miss all the insanity. But, let’s be honest, I am nothing if not a huge victim of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out, for those of you that don’t know) and not being at home, even for the things that people DIDN’T want to experience, felt like I was missing something. I mean, all of my friends were talking about it because they were all living in the middle of it! My entire twitter feed was full of snow warnings, bus delays, general complaints, and reminders that, yes, class was cancelled again. It was funny and when we got those emails about make-up classes on Saturdays I suddenly felt very grateful for being in Italy (where it never actually got much below 40 degrees).  After the snow subsided, I was met with a million snapchat stories about how beautiful it was getting (these really only started in the past few weeks). Again, I was missing so much! But my BFF Jen always gently reminded me that I wasn’t allowed to be upset because “I WAS IN ITALY/GREECE/PARIS/(some country)”. And, I mean, she was pretty right. Except for when I sprained my ankle and was limping around Greece for a week, I really had no place to complain about FOMO or anything of the sort. I came to terms with the fact that I would be missing a ton of really important events at home about two weeks before I left. I knew it would suck and I was fully prepared to watch The Daily Show online as often as possible so I could act like I generally knew what I was missing.  In a completely different vein, the past few weeks, things got very heated, very close to home, again. I’m from Ellicott City, Maryland aka Columbia aka the town directly between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. aka basically just outside Baltimore aka I am V close to all the important things. When all the shit started going down in Baltimore, I was blithely unaware for approximately 10 hours. I can always tell that something big is happening when all my Facebook friends start writing paragraph-long statuses. Usually I scroll past them anyways, since I don’t go on Facebook all that much and they could just be sharing cooking recipes or something, you know? It wasn’t until my friends starting messaging each other (and me) in our group message about what was going on that I really started to pay attention. The protesting, the rioting, the call for action was huge news, not just in my hometown--where several people were driving to Baltimore to join in or sending well-wishes from the comfort of their homes--but even here in Italy. My host parents asked me about it at dinner one night and I tried to explain what I could in a foreign language. Racism is hard to understand here because while it is incredibly prevalent (to an uncomfortable point), it isn’t challenged at all. There is very little done to protest the normal, societal view of racism; people just sort of live with it and no one really acknowledges it as a problem. Living in this type of environment was very unnerving for me at first--my friends and I complained several times after school at how white the whole country is and how uncomfortable it was to hear our host families say racist things. After a while though, we sort of decided to live our lives outside of that realm, never bringing it up at dinner or asking questions when we knew they would have upsetting answers.  So you can imagine trying to explain racism in Baltimore was a bit hard to do. I had to tell them that the people that were angry were fighting against the institutional racism that is a part of our country and has been for hundreds of years. I had to tell them that the rioting was a result of the anger that’s been building up and the injustices that have only grown in fervour since slavery ended. But sometimes they asked me questions that I couldn’t answer. When it came down to it, I was thousands of miles away from what was happening. I read a million articles but who can trust the news? I watched a million videos, but who can decide what’s really happening in them? I wanted to know what was happening and how we could fix it but what was I going to do from Italy? It was really hard. I tried to talk to my friends here about it but I’m the only one from the Maryland area so the fear and concern I had was far greater than what they could share in. My friends were talking about bomb threats at their schools, campuses getting shut down, my boyfriend had to leave work early before the rioters got too close to his building. It was a giant mess and no one was here to explain it to me.  I’m happy with what’s happened in the past week, with the Freddie Gray case and Marilyn Mosby, but I still need to know more. I guess this is how my friends felt when they came back to Boston after missing the bombing at the marathon. We keep struggling to understand what’s going on but can never get a good idea without being in the middle of it. And it’s hard to look around you and see a beautiful Italian city full of happy, smiling people while knowing your friends and family are struggling to understand the disasters down the street. My friend’s sister was in Nepal during the earthquake and I got to bike ride to class the next morning like nothing was going on. It’s not normal and as a person that always strives to stay informed and empathetic, it can be really hard being far away from so much. I can’t keep saying “I’m in Italy, enjoy it” when there is SO MUCH happening outside of here and me and this place. It’s hard not to feel bad sometimes when you’re enjoying the sun in Prato and eating gelato instead of digging people out of rubble. But it’s like my mom says, if we all stopped going outside because we were too afraid or spent every day filling our minds with the hardships of the world, we would fall apart. The whole world would just collapse in on itself. So I guess for now we just need to compromise and keep reading articles in between studying for finals or watching movies.  Didn’t mean for this post to be such a downer but hey usually food for thought isn’t that exciting anyways. I hope the world stays relatively happy for my last two weeks here so that I come home to an America that welcomes me with open arms :) I can’t wait to see how beautiful it is and be in awe all over again. 

[ilfuturo]

2 Weeks Notice

Hello followers, friends, random people that stumble across this blog for no good reason, I am saddened to give you my official two weeks notice. As it turns out, I do eventually have to leave Italy. I wish there was some way to just not.... And possibly return every three months to visit again and see all the people I’ve met here and will miss dearly. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no way my bank account would be able to handle that! So, alas, I’m forced to leave this place of 2 euro calzones, 3 euro glasses of wine, 2.50 gelato, and beautiful people speaking a beautiful language.  I will be the first to admit that I have missed home a LOT during this whole experience. The first two weeks here I basically spent trying not to cry because I wanted to be with my family and friends. The following month I was happy to be here and the more comfortable I got with Paola and Bruno, the language, my classes, etc. the happier I was being away. But it took a long time. I haven’t thought about what’s changed much until now and really I think the problem is even though I was one of the last people to leave for study abroad, and I had almost two full months at home, I really wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I spent months mentally telling myself that I was leaving and I had to get used to the idea. But I just didn’t, I don’t know, maybe you can’t really prepare yourself until you get there? But I got to Italy and I was not ready in any sense of the word. I was distraught.  I’m still adjusting, I don’t think you can ever really stop adjusting until you’ve lived somewhere for over a year, but I feel very at home here now. It feels good to be in Padova and be among the people here. I don’t feel like some weird American alien anymore pretending to be one of them haha. I come home every day excited to have dinner and hang out with Paola and Bruno because the language barrier is virtually nonexistent now. I don’t feel hindered when I participate here by my language, culture, clothes, or anything. That’s a beautiful feeling, to not be foreign in a foreign country. I never thought I’d really achieve that anywhere.  So where does this leave us? Here I am, looking at about 2 weeks until I’m home, sleeping in my very own full mattress that’s too short for me so I kind of have to lie down diagonally and mess all the covers up and when I wake up in the morning I can drive to a local coffee shop or Dunkin or Starbucks and I know how much to tip at restaurants or to factor tax in before I pay. I’m changing everything all over again and that’s absolute insanity because, I mean, I sort of just got here.  The whole idea of studying abroad is SO insane for SO many reasons that I’m starting to realize just now, at the end of it. But it’s so unbelievably amazing in its insanity and I can only begin guessing how it’s made me grow as a person. When we get home, that’s when we’ll really see how we’ve grown and what’s changed about us. It might just be new clothes, but who knows? I’m excited to find out, even if it means leaving behind a world of exciting differences that I’ve loved (basically) every second of. Even if it means packing up, praying to the TSA gods, and flying away again.