I wasn't supposed to study abroad.
It was never a part of my plan for college
My plan for college was to get in, get out, and go on to graduate school for psychology. As always, plans change. It all really began with pledging a sorority. (Wow I really hate to start a story that way). While I've always considered myself social, I had no way to meet people at my college. At my high school, most of us graduating had also started kindergarten together. Meeting new people was unnecessary. So, I took the plunge in college, and I immediately felt at home. Joining the sorority freshman year led to my sophomore roomate/suitemates. I didn't know them that well at the time, but damn did we have a blast. My greatest memories of college can be traced back to sophomore year without a doubt.
Of course, nothing lasts forever.
As winter quarter wore on, all were in a scramble to find houses/roommates. On campus at my school, meant no alcohol, whatsoever. As I claim to be no saint, I was obviously hoping for off campus. A certain house off campus existed that was rented out by mostly upperclassmen sorority sisters. Only a certain number of slots were available. It happened, that all of my closest friends, including my 2 roommate/suitemates, were invited to live there. I was not. Of course, they all accepted, without much of a look elsewhere. I hadn't experienced such rejection and, what I perceived to be betrayal, since junior high (still the worst years of my life to date).
I was pissed.
Fine. No one wanted to live with me? I'll leave the country.
As a French minor, naturally I gravitated towards France. However, the only programs my university offered in France, meant learning in French. I'm not fluent. I'm barely intermediate. I can carry on a conversation, provided that the Frenchman I'm talking to doesn't get philosophical or abstract on me. That is beyond my scope of the language.
Okay, so study in English then. But where?
Little did I know at enrollment, my little private college had a long standing exchange with Maastricht University, a decent sized school located at the Netherlands southern most tip. The exchange mostly catered to students in business or economics. However, they did happen to have a school of neuroscience. At my uni, psychology classes are all cognitive. Neuroscience was a chance to explore the brain in a whole new biological perspective. The best part? Everything was in English. Everything. Not just classes, but daily life could also be carried out in English. While I thoroughly hate the fact that American's expect everyone to speak English, I had to admit that it made the prospects look pretty damn good.
Fortunately, (and I really am constantly grateful for this) I have a family that supports me in pretty much every venture I pursue. While I was set to start class in Maastricht at the beginning of September, my dad decided to make a trip out of getting me to the Netherlands. We set aside the last two weeks in August for a Globus bus tour of France, along with my stepmother and two of my aunts and uncles. (Until then, I DID find an apartment, er living quarters, in my boss's basement. That whole experience deserves a blog of its own...)
So off the seven of us went.
It wasn't hard to leave. I was still salty about the living situation at college, and I had grown apart from all but a small group of friends from my hometown. At the time I was leaving behind a boyfriend of two years, but I had promised myself long ago that I would never let a relationship affect my academic decisions (a principle I still adhere to). So I set my mom up with a Skype account, packed what I deemed as my "most European" clothes, made a few goodbye phone calls, and on August 16, 2009, boarded a transatlantic flight to Paris.
In our two weeks around France, we saw a LOT. Including some of the most beautiful places I´ve ever seen.
Cities and sites included...
Paris, Versailles, Rouen, Caen, Normandy, Bayeux, Mont St. Michel, Tours, Chambord, Chenonceau, Clos Luce, Limoges, St. Emilion (my favorite), Bordeaux, Carcassonne, Nimes, Pont du Gard, Avignon, Nice, Cannes, Aix en Provence, Lyon, Beune and Dijon.
We ended the trip back in Paris. There my aunts and uncles stayed to catch their flight back to the States, and my dad, my stepmother, and I boarded a train for Maastricht.
Originally, it seemed like things worked out perfectly, with the tour of France ending just before my first day of class. I would have basically a full day in Maastricht to get myself settled in before I started the next day. However, the day I arrived in Maastricht was a Sunday.
We were not aware how Sunday´s work in the Netherlands.
Because in the Netherlands, Sundays DON´T work.
Absolutely nothing was open. We couldn´t check me into my room. We couldn´t buy sheets, or school supplies, or food, or anything. We ended up at a janky Chinese place for dinner, because it was the only place we could find that was open. That afternoon, my dad and stepmom took a train to Amsterdam, where they´d catch their flight back to the States.
While I couldn´t check into my real room, the Guesthouse (what the dorm was called) gave me an extra room in a different building that happened to be available. I couldn´t unpack, or open any of the sheets or pillows however. I slept in a sweatshirt with three pairs of socks, and set an alarm on my laptop using a clock website on the internet.
My first full day in Maastricht was hell. My first two weeks were hell really. Nothing worked out how it was supposed to.
Once I got my real room and met my new roommate Dan Mao from Szechuan, China. I had class in just a few hours. Not knowing how the buses work, I thought I would walk.
I not only underestimated the distance, I also got lost. It took me two hours (my faculty was a 30 min bike ride away, it turned out). I was late for class. My Dutch "buddy" was kind of a bitch, and wasn´t interested in speaking English. I felt so isolated.
I realized how desperately I was going to need a bike to survive. As I was the first person from my uni to go on exchange for psychology, I wasn´t aware that there were dorms within walking distance of my faculty. Students in my dorm could walk to the economics and business faculty, but not the neuroscience faculty.
The first week, I didn´t have sheets. I didn´t have an alarm clock. I ate white rice with Caesar dressing for every meal. I had trouble paying for things, either the ATM didn´t take my cards, or the store wouldn´t take my card.
Eventually, after wrestling with some Spanish students, I acquired a bike. After that, everything went so much smoother. I learned how store hours operated, how to read the bus schedules, how to bike while holding an umbrella, how to bag my own groceries AS the lady is scanning them, how to navigate traffic circles while someone is sitting on the rack of your bike. I set up a Dutch bank account, and suddenly I was able to actually purchase things that I needed.
There were certain things I learned to give up and live without. Basically, if it didn´t fit in my backpack, I didn´t need it. Certain food items that were too heavy or fragile, I just didn´t eat them anymore. I used to carry around a heavy purse with my whole life in it, now I mostly just carried my bike keys and a bit of cash. I also didn´t miss my cellphone. It was nice not being available at every hour. If someone wanted to talk to me, they could leave me a facebook message and I´d eventually respond.
After the first two weeks of hell, I didn´t want to leave.
While I was in Maastricht, I also did a bit of traveling around. My classes were every MWF, and I could only miss one session of each class. The business and economic students had a bit more lax schedules. All of my trips had to be arranged around weekends.
I did a day trip with two fellow sorority sisters that were also studying abroad to Brussels and Brugges. I also went with two students from my uni to Stockholm as well as London and Dublin. There was a day trip to Cologne, as well as Aachen for its Winter Market and football team. There were several overnight stays in Amsterdam, including an Australian friend´s birthday (one of the best times of my life), an American friend´s birthday, and Halloween. The last trip I took was a week in Italy with the same Australian friend. I had decided not to fly back right after my classes ended, so I could do just a little more traveling.
I flew back to the States four days before Christmas.
It was bitter sweet being home. I was happy to see my family and my friends. But coming home is never the one big event you think its going to be. Its not a direct insertion back into your previous life. Its a slow, and frankly painful, process. Nothing is ever normal again. You can´t just go back to the way things were before. It´s like time travel. When you get back, it feels like only two minutes have passed since you left, but you´ve experienced 100 epiphanies in those two minutes and there´s just no way to convey to anyone how exactly it is that you have changed because they have hardly changed at all. It took me much longer to readjust to living in the States, than it took for me to adjust to living abroad.
People don´t really want to hear about the amazing time you had. No one wants to hear someone talk about Europe. And even if they do, they have no idea what to ask. How was it, it was good. What did you do, lots of stuff. Ah, okay, cool. No one has ever seen all of my pictures. Even my own family couldn´t make it past my France pictures without getting bored.
That´s where this blog comes in. It isn´t only just so my mother knows that I´m still alive. It also lets me finally tell someone about my travels without boring them or coming across as a pompous asshole. Maybe then, if everyone can experience my epiphanies with me, if they´re on the same time travel path, it won´t be so difficult to come home.
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