East Side GalleryI'm sitting in my living room, facing my near-empty shelves and articles scattered across the floor. One of the windows is broken and does not close all the way, so it's just been chilly in here for the past week. One of the living room chairs has a crack that threatens to give way anytime weight is put on it. Our vacuum cleaner has not worked since the second week of the semester, and had been set out on the balcony for the remainder of the semester (it was my roommate's idea...). The fridge and freezer are inexplicably leaking all over the kitchen floor.... and yet, this is home. It has been for the past three and a half months. Now, I look into my room and see several suitcases and my computer bag all packed up and ready to go for tomorrow. There are so many things that I'm going to miss about Berlin, and also some parts of my experience that I would rather leave behind. For one, I'm going to miss the phenomenal Turkish grocery market, the cheap and delicious beer, efficient and easy public transportation with convenient metrocards, the amazing cultural scene, the history that is seeped into every corner. I definitely won't miss things such as the language barrier. That was by far the only real difficulty I hit this semester. If I could speak even conversational German, simple transactions such as asking to try on clothes, buying phone credit and listening to instructions on the subway would have not been a problem. I guess that is part of studying abroad: you risk putting yourself in an awkward position where you can't speak a word of what you need to convey. I'm already anticipating how strange hearing English left and right will be. I've become so used to straining my ears to try and understand German, or to just shutting it out altogether. Getting back to the States will be so... easy. I won't have to try too hard understand, but I would have to put in effort to ignore people, which is the opposite from when you don't understand the language at all. I think that the littlest aspects of my life back in New York will be the most noticeable. For example, I've only seen one coffee shop here offer sleeves for to-go cups. When I get back to New York, I'll probably carry my cup barehanded and forget. Also, the public transport is honor system, so you don't have to pay for each entry into the stations. You can jump on it whenever and take any mode - no fumbling through your wallet and pockets for a Metrocard. Overall, I've loved the experience, and I can't wait to experience these tiny odd moments in New York. They'll be permanent reminders of my short life in another country, another city. As long as I can remember these small cultural nuances, I know that I'll be carrying Berlin with me for the rest of my life.

Paris in the snow: so lovely, until it wreaked havoc on my travel plans

Well, I am finally home in Brooklyn, after the return trip from hell! Snow in Paris led to hours on the runway, I missed my connecting flight, waited a full day in Amsterdam trying to get on another one standby, spent the night in a hotel, and thanks to some miracle, got home to New York late last night, despite the foot of snow and high winds.

Besides the exhaustion, frustration, confusion, and plenty of other –ion words I felt in my 3-day trip home, I think the strangest aspect was being in Limbo: no longer still in Paris, but not yet returned to my world at home. On the plus side, as I wasn’t yet distracted by re-entering New York, I had a certain distance from my life in Paris, and could think about it more objectively. My last few weeks were, without a doubt, my most fulfilling and exciting weeks in Paris, albeit also intense and chaotic. I had the feeling that my life was full, that I had invested enough in the things I was doing in Paris (classes, the play, new friends, and getting to know the city) to be extremely busy, but in an usually satisfying way.

Not surprisingly, reaching this state of happiness at the very end of my semester made me wonder if I couldn’t have helped myself get there sooner. Sitting around several airports, I asked myself what forces had been at work in the first few months that might have gotten in my way. In large part, I actually think the problem was the length of time. A semester in New York goes by very, very quickly. When I came to Paris, I knew I wanted to take my French skills further, see a lot of art, write, and generally revel in the city. There was a part of me, though, that didn’t want to get TOO attached. Pretty conflicted about leaving my boyfriend and close friends behind in New York, I think I came to Paris focused more on aesthetic and intellectual explorations than on social ones. I immersed myself in the language and the place, but didn’t work as hard as I usually do to form lasting friendships with people. I would only be here for 3.5 months, right?

It was much to my surprise, therefore, that I realized in the weeks before my departure that I had, indeed, met some wonderful people who were genuinely sad to see me go. I got phone calls from several Parisian friends, inviting me for a last dinner or coffee. Their sincerity and warmth really touched me, particularly because I hadn’t thought we were all that close. It made me think back to a French friend of my mom’s, who once said that the Americans were quick to make friends but also quick to forget them, while the French took forever to warm up but stayed friends for life.

I think that my sense of temporariness and slight reluctance in Paris was part of what kept me from feeling fully connected to it until the end, but the French slowness in making friends contributed to it. Had I been there for a full school year, I would have had the time to pursue and truly enjoy the friendships I had (perhaps unbeknownst to me) been cultivating. A full year wasn’t an option for me at this point, but the wheels are definitely turning in my head to figure out another time to live and work in Paris. Knowing now the length of time it takes to truly create a new niche for one’s self there, I think I would be less put off by the gradual nature of that process.

When I left a friend’s apartment on my second to last night, he gave me a Tupperware with leftovers from our dinner. “But I won’t have a chance to get this back to you,” I reminded him. “No,” he said, “But you’ll keep it until I come to New York, or when you come back here.” His kindness and hopefulness for the future was infectious: though I don’t know when or how I’ll make it happen, I’m sure now that I’ll find my way back to France, and I hope, to the friends I made there.

Prague “So how was Prague?”
The question looms over my head. I can hear each of my aunts and uncles, grandparents and step-relatives poised to ask me this question over the flurry of Christmas parties to come. We got an e-mail yesterday from the Global Programs office at NYU detailing ways we could experience reverse culture shock. One of them was being unable to express how we feel or how we’ve changed, in the face of this all-encompassing question. Prague was……life for four months. You cannot sum up the life of sixteen weeks in small talk with relatives.
However, this course has, at the very least, prepared me with seventeen different ways I can answer that question. Unlike many of my fellow travelers, I had the opportunity every few days to gather my thoughts and delve into my feelings and decide how Prague was at that point. I think it has been very valuable to me as a writer, as a traveler, and as a person who is actively growing and changing, still using the world as a sounding board to figure out who he is and what he wants to do with his life. As I’ve mentioned before in other posts, Prague is a place of melancholy introspection, and being able to express my view helped keep my day to day life a little more sane.
This being said, I did encounter a bit of a problem in both this course and my academics in Prague. Everything about this semester was somewhat more laid back academically. I was far away form my advisor, from the bureaucracy of NYU, and from the speedy intensity of New York, in a foreign country where I was expected to learn as much from my surroundings and experience as my academics. I found that everyone approached this balance in a different way. Some students, my roommate included, practically took the semester off. They traveled almost every weekend, they went out all the time, they complained when even the smallest assignment brought the least bit of stress. Others took the opposite approach and took everything as seriously as if every grade mattered more than anything else. I even heard one kid, in discussing when to have the final in his class say, “Have it on Thursday. They just want it on Tuesday so they can party.” My reaction was, of course they want to have fun. It’s their last week in Prague, and they want to remember it as a good time to the last. I admit, I had trouble, and would have liked more guidance from staff as to what the appropriate balance between experiential education and classroom education was.
I am not, however, in any way disappointed with my experience abroad or in Prague. I have done and seen what many people never have the chance to do. I think it’s only appropriate, as I started this blog with a story about my father, to close with one as well. Recently he said to me, “I didn’t get to go to Europe ‘til I was almost forty.” He said it half-jokingly, with some jealousy and some pride mixed in, but he said it because he wanted to remind me to appreciate what time I had left in Prague, and to take as much as I could from the experience because, who knows, I might not get back again until I’m almost forty. And that’s exactly what I did.

Less than 20 kg? I doubt it.I wish I could reflect a bit right now on my semester in Paris, but my flight leaves tomorrow and my last few days have been lots of fun but also incredibly stressful. I squeezed in a visit to the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris yesterday for an exhibit I had really wanted to see, I’ve gone with my friends to our favorite bars, and we had a wonderful goodbye dinner that concluded with the best chocolate mousse I’ve ever eaten.

But a lot of my last week in Paris has been rather bureaucratic. I closed my bank account, dropped off a DVD at school, went to the post office to ship my books home (and discovered that there are special burgundy-colored boxes specifically for shipping wine bottles). Tuesday night I spent five hours in the emergency room with a friend who needed antibiotics; we got home at 3 AM and I took a final the next afternoon. And now I am completely preoccupied with packing, with fitting everything in and trying to keep at least one of my suitcases under the weight limit. It’s not a very elegant or thoughtful end to my semester in Paris, but I guess that’s how it goes : I think an idea I and some of the other people in Paris kept coming back to is the balance between the elegance and fascination of the city with the banality of real life

The NYU in Paris program is, for the most part, very well organized, and the classes are interesting and challenging. I did want to take a class at a French university, though, which NYU really encourages people to do; I had a very hard time trying to navigate the Sorbonne class schedules (the one posted on the wall during the NYU tour, the one the Sorbonne office gave us, the one posted on their website), and when I finally found a course that interested me and fit with my schedule, I realized that I would be taking too many credits this semester (with this class and our two-credit preliminary course) to take a four-credit class outside of NYU as well (by this point, our regular classes had started). This was frustrating but, in hindsight, maybe not such a bad thing—I’ve had a lot of free time to explore Paris. And I’m glad I’ve had this class to encourage me to reflect, as a record of my expectations and experiences and changing perspectives during my time in Paris.

La Belle Vie

This semester has been very different from all of the previous semesters I spent in New York. As a native, I never had to adjust to a new place when going to college, so this was my first attempt. At times, it was difficult, depressing, and draining, but at others, it was exhilarating and joyful. Participating in the Art of Travel helped me adjust to life here through weekly reflection.

Originally, I questioned whether or not I should return to Paris next semester, but ultimately I decided that it was the best choice. After having to adjust to a new place for the first time, I don’t think that I’ve experienced Paris in a significant way just yet. I am excited to afford myself the chance. The last couple of weeks here, I’ve been feeling a lot more settled than I have for a long time. In fact, I am a little bit nervous about going home for the holidays. I know that living in Paris has changed the way I function and I worry about how it will affect my relationships when I return.

That being said, I really appreciate the way Paris has affected me over the last few months. I appreciate little quotidian pleasures much more now, like the smell of a boulangerie early in the morning or the taste of hand-made pasta. NYU in France has been really amazing because the program really encourages you to explore the culture of Paris, while maintaining a safe community oriented atmosphere. I think that when I finally return to the US for good, I will appreciate New York so much more for what it has to offer culturally.

Everyday in Paris I feel as though I face my fears head-on. I don’t worry so much about fitting in, and favor growth instead. I encourage everyone to study abroad because it really forces you to break out of your shell and grow socially and emotionally. It’s an incredibly rewarding experience to walk blindly into a new life and come out a stronger person for it.

friends and I in RIO DE JANIERO spring breakin' it!

I came here thinking I would write in my journal. I even brought a brand new journal just for Argentina, but I never even opened it. I started with the excuse that I wanted to buy a pretty one from here. But then that never happened either. I failed at journaling while abroad. But I don’t feel as bad about it because I had this class. Through the topics that we discussed and wrote about, I feel that I reflected on some good thoughts that I had here that maybe I wouldn’t have journaled about in the first place. I feel that I have a good keepsake from this class. It was awesome to have to sit down and reflect on my life abroad. I am so glad that I have this.

I cannot believe that it is over. I go home in four days and don’t really know what to do about that. I haven’t done a thing to get ready, nor do I want to start. I absolutely hate packing. I don’t want to believe that I am leaving (even though I am slightly excited to go home). I have had the most amazing four months. It was probably the fastest semester of my life. I am so grateful for everything that I have done and seen here. This entire semester has been so perfect. I would say the hardest thing would have been adjusting to the semi-annoying-for-an-American-inefficiency of Latin America. But honestly, I even transitioned to all of those tidbits quite smoothly as well. I got used to my shower curtain falling and hitting me on the head. I got used to the slow motion world around me. I got used to walking with my head down to dodge the constant dog sh*t. I just loved it. I absolutely loved my time abroad. I am completely content with my semester. I made amazing friends. I traveled to some places that all compete with being the most beautiful place I have ever been. I learned Spanish and bonded with the most amazing host family. I guess the worst part is that while bonding over food and drinks with everyone, I got fat. My b.

As much as I love it here, I am getting kind of ready to go home. I don’t like that it is 80 degrees out when I am listening to Christmas music (not the same as my home in the snowy mountains). I’m sick of looking like I have chicken pox because all of my millions of mosquito bites swell up. I am so ready to eat a freaking turkey sandwich for once and not have to look at ham for a good month. And most importantly, I am SOO ready to go home to my bed. The one thing I never liked here in Argentina was my lame ass bed. It didn’t even dent when I would jump on it. The sucker is rock hard.

I know that when I go home, I will get the age-old question: how was it? And you know, that most people asking, are just looking for conversation and a quick sum up answer. But how the h*ll are we supposed to sum up the most amazing semester of your life into a sentence?! “It was amazing!” I will respond. They will smile. End of conversation. No one will ever really know quite how my life in Buenos Aires was besides everyone else here that went through it with me. That is one thing that I will always have with the fifty other students here: a special bond of experience and understanding. We will all always have these past four months together. And unless someone wants to take me to coffee to REALLY know how my semester was, then no one will know much of anything besides that it was “so amazing”.

besos,

bird x

London SkylineWith 4 more days left in London, I've had a lot on my mind. Of course finals have been at the forefront of that but the idea that I'm actually going back to New York after 4 months of being away is kind of crazy. The past 4 months have been some of the craziest in my life. What I got to experience while I was here are things many people never get the chance to experience and for that, I will always be grateful. Not only have I gotten to spend 4 months in London, but I've also had the chance to travel outside of London to Dublin, Amsterdam, Brugge and Paris. What I've gotten to do within London has be fantastic as well. I feel like I learned so much about myself and, as cheesy as it sounds, have changed. The changes haven't hit me yet but I think they will once I go back to familiar territory.
This blog helped me record what I did here and gave me the chance to reflect on it. I often have this problem of having too many thoughts in my head and I need space to pace around and sort through those thoughts. However, when your room is barely the size of a closet, that's hard to do. This blog gave me the chance to focus my thoughts about what I was living. It was nice to be able to read what was happening in other sites; it made the experience feel a lot bigger than just me. It helped knowing that people were having similar doubts and feelings about being in another country, despite the fact that we were all over the globe.
I don't know what going home is going to be like. I've had pictures in my head of how I'll react when I see my family and friends again for the past 2 weeks. I've been through a whole range of emotions from happiness to sadness to excitement to disbelief. And now, with 4 days left, I have a combination of all of those. After all this time away, I don't know what to expect it to feel like when I land at JFK. I suppose it won't help that I'll have cousins over the day I land who will want to know everything about my semester. I'm not sure if I'm going to be ready to try to consolidate this whole experience. The pictures I took will definitely help but they are only one part of the entire semester and I certainly didn't capture every little moment. But it was the little moments that made this different and those are the ones that are permanently etched in my memory and since they don't need to be shared, they can always be my own.
I've decided to leave you with some lyrics from Coldplay (fittingly British) from “Life in Technicolor ii.” This set of lyrics manages to describe London in a way I can't seem to:
“Won't you take me where the streetlights glow
I could hear it coming
I could hear the sirens sound
Now my feet won't touch the ground”

NYU in Florence

Back in New York City. Has this semester really come and gone? The last day and a half I’ve been back in America has felt like a weird dream that I’ll eventually wake up from and find myself in Italy again. More so also because I’m actually flying out again in the morning ridiculously early to my parents who live in Hawaii. (I’m just in Manhattan for the weekend to drop off my stuff at my apartment. Oh sweet apartment, I missed thee.) So being back in NYC in the midst of all the finals flurry which my friends are experiencing at the moment (and have no time for me), it hasn’t fully hit me that I’m actually gone for good. A problem because when my friends do ask, “So how was Italy? Was it amazing? What was it like?” I have absolutely no idea how to respond.

So now as I’m here trying to genuinely reflect on this last semester… streams of memories flow my mind… All the places I’ve been, all the people I’ve met, all the food I’ve eaten… It was a good semester. Though, admittedly a bit out of my general comfort zone. The constant feeling of unsettledness was something I could never shake; thus, I feel I was never able to truly connect with the city. It honestly felt like a huge vacation, a step outside reality that is my life in NYC with the constant hustle and bustle, the expectations and goals. I feel I’ve gained a greater appreciation for the little things in life; learning how to pause, reflect, soak in, with no other ulterior motive. And I’m inspired to bring that kind of spirit to this city of rat race mentality.

As far as this blog went… I’m actually quite grateful. It really forced me to reflect about my experiences and retain some of those memories that might have been otherwise easily forgotten. I initially took this course because I had a feeling that without it, I would fail to write in my own journal. And this whole experience from August to December would be lost forever. But now, having even these snippets comforts me and assures me that yes, I was in Europe. I did live that life. Also, being able to share with all of you and reading about your experiences brought this to a whole other level. That collectively we shared experiences that were actually quite different. Yet, in some way, being study abroad students creates a certain bond that only other study abroad students could ever understand. That’s a beautiful thing, I think.

And as a final statement, I suppose that’s what I really appreciated about this whole semester. Realizing that this world isn’t as big as we might think. That the human experience is one that we can all share and live together. And in that way, we can truly work towards a future of acceptance, understanding, and love. A love for others, a love for this world, a love for life.

Carrie in Paris

Here in Paris, I have experienced a wide range of emotions: happiness, sadness, giddiness, homesickness, excitement, frustration, and I could go on and on… However, this being said, coming to Paris has been an absolutely amazing experience all around! Yes, there have most definitely been times that were better than others and even times when I questioned my decision, but as the semester draws to a close I would have to say that no matter what, Paris has been and will be an important of my undergraduate career as well as my life.

Thinking about all the things that I have had the opportunity to do over the course of the semester makes me feel so lucky: riding a golf cart around the grounds of a castle, seeing the Ballet (multiple times) at the beautiful Palais Garnier, eating several gourmet meals (on NYU’s tab), riding on the back of a moped at sunset, and making friends with Parisians and American who I may have never met otherwise. Thinking back on all these things, it’s hard to believe that I did it all in one semester and that there are many people who will never get the chance to do these things in a lifetime.

This course has really helped me to put me to put everything in perspective and appreciate my own unique experience. At times I would feel bad for being homesick or frustrated with life in Paris but when I came on the Place Studies website I could see how other people, who I could relate to, having similar problems and remind myself that this was just a part of study abroad in general not a reflection of my time in Paris. Also, reading everyone’s posts was often times inspiring! When I saw someone doing something really cool, I wanted to go out and do something equally as exciting and I could read the blogs of fellow NYU Paris(ers) to see what they were up to and maybe add their adventures onto my own list of things to do.

I know that when I get home and start showing all my friends and family my pictures and souvenirs, there are going to be little things that I start to miss about Paris in the same way that I have so many things I miss about America and New York. Most of all, I think I will just appreciate Americans a lot more and the security that comes with knowing how to get everything that you want when you want it. I will also appreciate being able to express myself completely. My French is very good at this point, but there are still times when I don’t feel like I can explain myself fully. I can always communicate an idea but there are certain ways to nuance what you are saying or elaborate that I am lacking from my French communication skills.

Many of you may or may not have caught the title of my first post, “An American Girl in Paris Part One.” This was a play of the title of the series finale of “Sex and the City,” when Carrie goes to Paris with The Russian. Much like Carrie, I came to Paris not having any friends, taking the plunge on my own and prepared to spend some time learning about myself and expanding my horizons. I was drawn to Paris for the Rich cultural history and, of course, the fashion and shopping. I thought the magic of Paris meant that everything would be perfect all the time but just like Carrie I learned that even one of the most beautiful cities in the world cannot replace the things closest to your heart and that at the end of the day, I am meant to be in New York. So to conclude my final post for this class I will end with another “Sex and the City” allusion, “There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back,” a quote that Carrie uses to describe relationships, but one that I feel can also sum up our experiences abroad.

I'll miss you choripan (at least for the two months I'm gone, until I come back next semester)I have to just start off by saying that I truly enjoyed this class. Going in, I expected to just fill out a meaningless blog post every few days, giving a couple of updates of the things I’ve been doing during my same here. However, as the semester went on, I realized that both the readings and the questions challenged me to think about travel and the whole study abroad experience in a way that I never would have. Having to read, write and reflect has really helped me understand and verbalize the importance of my experiences here. I don’t think that there’s been one “most rewarding aspect” of my time here. Instead, I feel that the entire experience of beginning to master another language and truly immersing myself in another culture has been incredible. It not only has helped me to appreciate the Argentine culture, but my own as well. As for problems, I really can’t say I faced anything to drastic. Probably the most difficult challenge I faced was deciding where to travel/what things to do. However, I knew that I’d want to have more than just four months here, so I will actually be staying on in Buenos Aires for the next semester to continue studying abroad here. So, I’ll be able to continue traveling and exploring, both the greater Argentina and South America as well as Buenos Aires. Instead of going home during the two-month break, I will be traveling to Brazil for about a month and then Chile for two weeks, before returning back to Buenos Aires. I think that NYU could do a few things to make this study abroad better. For starters, they should let students have the option of renting an apartment, instead of forcing them to either live in a residence or with a host family. It is ridiculous, we’re all adults, and we should be able to choose where we live. Secondly, they should allow students to have the option of taking a class/classes at a local university. Thirdly, they should establish the possibility of getting credit for an internship. I had a really cool internship here that I would be getting credit for in New York, but they don’t have it set up here yet. Other than that, I must say that I’ve been really pleased with my study abroad experience here. Years from now, while I’m sure I won’t remember all the specific names of people I’ve met and places I’ve gone, I will remember the excitement and the incredibly feeling of possibility that each day brought. The feeling of exploring and meeting a new friend or experiencing a new adventure at any moment. That and the awesomeness that is choripan.