A Bit Of Financial Advice

Ah, la belle France. Delicious food, beautiful weather in the south and a culture that believes indulging in pleasures is the way life should be. Parfait, non? Yes, it was quite perfect...until I ran into some problems at the bank. Unfortunately the word for overdrawn bank account is solde débiteur. If you are like me, you probably looked at this and thought débiteur looks like debit so that must just means it's my debit account. Oh false cognates, how i loathe thee. As you can imagine this situation snowballed until I realized that my balance was very much in the red. Needless to say I was not pleased. Despite the fact that this situation was quite unpleasant, I will say that it did have an underlying lesson, as all problems in life seem to have. Lesson #1. Know some banking related vocabulary before opening an account or at the very least find a native speaker that you can ask for clarification on tricky/unknown words. Do not assume that a foreign bank does things just like your Citizen's Bank back home! Lesson #2. Don't be afraid or panic when a situation like this occurs. I took action and went to the bank and explained my situation and they were very kind and helpful. They even waived some of the overdraft fees. Lesson #3. I discovered that I was a lot more competent at dealing with a difficult situation than I had previously thought. So don't doubt yourself. Whether you are dealing with the bank, your landlord, an overbearing housemother or a difficult teacher: these situations may seem scary at first but you will feel so much more mature and adult after successfully dealing with them. Bon courage!

Las Fallas

Being a Penn State student I consider myself a veteran in the art of partying, but you don’t know how to party until you visit Spain. One of the most exciting Holidays in Spain is Las Fallas which is held in Valencia in March. I had the opportunity to visit Valencia during this holiday and it was probably the most fun I had the entire time I was abroad.
Las Fallas is a five day celebration that ends with the burning of ninots which are huge cardboard, wood and plaster statues--that are placed at over 350 key intersections and parks around the city today. The burning of the ninots takes place at midnight on the last day of the festival, but there are tons of things to do during the day on the other nights such as attend bullfights, watch fireworks, and throw your own fireworks.
The first night I was in Valencia we decided to watch a firework display on the river right on the edge of the city and it was by far the greatest firework presentation I had ever seen including Fourth of July firework displays. During the day there around thousands of fireworks and firecrackers going off all over the city and it constantly sounds like a warzone in the city. The most impressive firecracker display in the city is called “La Crema” and it occurs everyday during the festival at 2 pm. The city closes down an entire block and fills the block with firecrackers and fireworks. The display is so loud that I couldn’t even hear my friend talking next to me.
Typically, Valencia is a quite city with about half a million people, but during this festival the city’s population booms to a staggering three million people. Las Fallas usually takes place on the first week of spring break for most Spanish universities. If you are in Spain during this time this is a must see event that is worth staying atleast for a night. I would suggest staying for the last 48 hrs. of the festival because the burning of the ninots is a pretty cool site to see especially when there over 30 feet high.

llevame a Sevilla....

Since high school I've had a passion for the Spanish language. I had always done well in my Spanish courses and dreamed to one day be able to speak fluently. I knew the best and most likely only way I would be able to achieve that goal was to immerse myself in a Spanish speaking country, and I chose to do that by studying abroad in Seville, Spain.

When I left for Spain at the end of August, 2007 I had no idea what was awaiting me on the other side of the ocean. It was my first time out of the country and I was traveling alone and I couldn't have been more excitied! Upon my arrival to Sevilla, I realized I was missing two very important things.... my luggage! Luckily I had my most important items in my carry-on, including two additional outfits. My luggage didn't arrive for what seemed like the longest two weeks of my life, but once they were returned to me everything from then on was smooth sailing.

My semester abroad was the best experience of my life. Sevilla to me now is my second home, and my only regret was not studying abroad for the year. I plan to one day go back to visit my senora, the woman who took care of me and spoiled me with delicious food everyday, as well as my dear friend Pablo. I would have been there and back already, the only thing holding me es el dinero!!

Regrets

When I look back on the 9 1/2 months I spent living in the south of France, I am filled with many emotions. Regret, however, is one that does not come to mind. My goal for my study abroad experience in Montpellier, France was to never look back and wish that I had done something differently. Life is short and studying abroad is even shorter, so it is important to not waste time saying, "I'll do that tomorrow." That particular experience may not be there tomorrow and you have lost a unique opportunity, whether it be taking a trip to a vineyard or learning how to salsa dance.
The whole purpose of study abroad is to take you out of your comfort zone and allow you to experience new things with an open mind and an adventurous spirit. Of course this means different things to each and every one of us, whether adventure to you is white water rafting or traveling alone or merely striking up a conversation with a stranger. Whatever adventure means to you: make sure to take advantage of this opportunity to have one!
Some of my best experiences happened when I stopped planning and started living. Throwing yourself wholeheartedly into a different culture can be an exhilarating and scary, but I promise you it is worth it.
If I had not allowed myself to be adventurous while abroad, then I never would have experienced Oktoberfest in Munich or swam in a hidden away lake in the south of France or seen Platform 9 3/4! (That one was for all you Harry Potter fans.)
Remember adventure doesn't have to be sky diving or swimming with sharks, but it should be something fun for you that lets you explore a new side of yourself. If you take this study abroad opportunity as a chance to be adventurous and not hold back, then you will have no regrets. I only have one: that my time there went by so fast.

Gurgling? What?

Sometimes when you are abroad you find yourself in strange predicaments, without understanding how you came to be in that situation. Well, this happened to me a couple times abroad, yet a single situation continues to prevail in my memories.

I was studying in Florence, Italy at the Institute at Palazzo Rucellai. There, I was taking a Roman Empire class, which I found fascinating, considering the historical geographic location of what we were learning was 1.5 hours away. For one of our class trips we had an overnight stay in Rome. The first day we went to the Colosseum, the Pantheon, Caesar's Amphitheatre, and a couple of museums, the Trevi Fountain, et cetera. It was wonderful. We stayed in a quaint hotel that was a favorite of my teacher. It seemed to be owned by one family and housed a small number of people, as it was squeezed into a narrow alleyway between two large buildings. However, everything appeared new and in good working condition. There was even a breakfast buffet to be offered the next morning!

Two girls and I shared the handicapped bedroom on the first floor. We had gotten the best deal out of all the rooms, for there were two double beds, a whole lot of space, and a massive bathroom (when in Italy you'll discover there is very little room for everything, though they do like high ceilings...). However, we began to doubt our the awesome situation we were in right away. One of us used the bathroom and discovered the toilet made strange noises after it flushed, the water in the sink was very very slow going down the drain. BUT, we were in ROME! Who cares? We had the whole day ahead of us and there was no time to care about such minuscule matters. So we went to all the great sites, had a wonderful time, learned a whole lot, took way too many pictures, and went back to the hotel. We were going out for dinner so we got changed and ready to go. We encountered a small piazza with several restaurants and did a "mini miny mo" to choose our next meal. After "paste" we went to an Irish bar (why I don't know) to listen to some live music. Around a decent hour we headed back to our hotel.

One of the girls I was staying with, Kyle, was adamant on taking a shower. The other girl, Julie, and I were too tired to care. We were almost asleep when Kyle came out and said something was terribly wrong with the shower. She had turned the shower on, and while a little water trickled out of the faucet (more than normal for Italy), more water was coming up out of the drain...and it was grayish black, AND it was gurgling...LOUDLY. So Julie and I told her to just turn the water off and take a shower tomorrow morning, and went back to bed. Kyle came back out into the room and pronounced another problem. She had turned the shower off...but the water was continuing to come out of the drain. Now THIS was a problem. Julie and I, both thinking, "you can't be serious," jump out of bed and run over to the bathroom. Sure enough water was beginning to spill over the indent of the shower floor to the rest of the bathroom floor. Being the genius I am, I suggested that it appeared to be coming out pretty slowly, and would probably cease soon. Therefore, I continued, we should just throw towels down and let them soak up the water to contain the water spillage. Julie agreed with me, as were both tired and knew we had another fatiguing day ahead of us. Kyle reluctantly agreed, though she felt she had to do something right at that moment. So she went out into the hall and told the guy on duty that our shower was spilling over with water, though the water was off. He told her it was okay, they knew there was some sort of problem, and some guys were coming in the morning to take care of it.

At this, Kyle felt a little more peaceful about the situation and could sleep on it. As she was walking around her side of the bed there was this, "um...guys...?" Okay, now Julie and I were really getting irritated. "WHAT???!" Basically, there was a small pool of water, about a foot square over by the window (which reached the floor). We had heard water rushing on that side before and figured the drainage pipe must be on that side of the building, near that particular window. Well, Julie and I didn't care much for this situation either. We told Kyle to forget it, as the pool seemed stagnant and was not growing. So we all went to bed...finally.

Several time during the night I woke up, mid-sleep, hearing this gurgling noise in the background. I was too sleepy to really care what was going on in the bathroom, but I couldn't help but feel some anxiety. Then sometime early in the morning, there was the loudest GURGLING noise, I had ever heard! It woke all three of us up. I was starting to get a little worried now, so Julie turned on the light. A quarter of the room was flooded in water, either from the bathroom or from the window. Well, at this point, we had no idea what to do...perhaps we thought we were dreaming it all. We ultimately decided to go back to bed. It was only a couple more hours until a decent time to actually get up, and the guy out in the hall had said they already knew about this problem. So we moved all our stuff up to the tables and made sure nothing was plugged into the sockets, and once again went back to bed.

At one point the gurgling got ferocious again, so we looked at the clock, 7 AM. Okay, we could get up now without being the only ones stalking the small hallway outside. We turned on the light... and the whole damn floor was flooded. Not only was it flooded, it was so deep my foot was completely submerged in it! The small hallway leading to our bedroom door was not flooded yet, so we jumped onto each bed to get to the dry area. Well, I guess we finally woke up then, because we all at once realized that all are stuff was across the room on the most flooded side. Thankfully, Julie was an adept and very talented dancer, meaning she was the most flexible and acrobatic out of all of us. She jumped from bed to bed. Then she leaped to a chair, and stretched her leg over to the table holding the TV. She threw our stuff to us across the room, as we watched the water creeping towards us much faster that it had moved when this whole debacle first began. Kyle and I yelled at her to hurry (we had this notion we couldn't touch water that was coming out of the shower, the sink, and the toilet, though it looked fairly clean), as we dressed in a three foot square area. Julie was a little behind but just got dressed enough for us to basically fall over ourselves into the hallway as the water was almost at the door.

We spilled out into the hotel lobby, just as the owner of the hotel was walking by. Now, I have heard some Italians yell, and though they were screaming, because they were screaming Italian, it still sounded so beautiful. This man did NOT sound beautiful. He was FURIOUS! I'm pretty sure he heard a lot of Italian words that were not productive for me to know (yet who doesn't want to know these words?). My teacher, who was eating breakfast in the lounge area, rushed over and got an earful of whatever I did not want to know. He was pointing, screaming, pointing, pacing, pointing, screaming, etc! So the three of us did the only thing we knew to do. We hid. We sat in the corner of the lounge and as the students began to fill into the breakfast area gave us the looks of "what the hell did you do?!"

Our teacher came over and asked us the serious questions of: what did you do?, the owner says this but you did not do this?, are you telling me the truth?, et cetera. She also told us the owner was claiming we had stuffed toilet paper down all the drains for fun and had flooded the room purposefully. He was also demanding that we, the three students and the school were going to pay the thousands of dollars of damage that we caused. Well we were scared.

After an hour or so, a few people calmed down, minus the owner. We did not have to pay for anything, but my teacher could never come back there again. We had obviously not caused the problem, as the guy before had mentioned, they knew about the problem. We still don't know what caused the flooding or why it had to happen right then, when we three idiotic students were staying in that specific hotel in that specific room. We still had a day of touring ahead of us, so we were going to store our luggage and bags in a storage room, then come back for it all. However, now our teacher was very nervous and was uncertain of what to do. There was a slight possibility the owner would rummage through all of our stuff, for things he could sell, and money he could steal, to pay for the damage. But, after we got a reality check, she decided to just risk it.

We had a peaceful day, and when we came back our belongings were still intact. The owner was also still ranting back and forth down the hallway. We waited out in the street for the bus... We thought all the excitement for the weekend was over, yet on the drive back to Florence we witnessed a car slam into the car in front of it, causing it to flip in the air, and... Well, that's a story for another time.

Orange Juice

I'm not sure, but I think it's fair to say that i have always disliked orange juice. I mean, I'll drink it if I have to, but as far as my choice of breakfast beverage goes, orange juice is not a contender. So now I bet you're wondering exactly what this has to do with anything related to study abroad. It does, I promise.
I went to Egypt this summer with two Penn State professors and a group of 12 students. It took an eight hour flight from Philly to Paris, a six hour layover, and another five hour flight from Paris to Cairo to get there, and needless to say, jet lag was in full-bloom. Even though I was excited to be in Egypt I was fore-square against getting on another plain the next day to fly from Cairo down to Luxor. So the second night in Egypt I am in Luxor, completely wrung out from a solid 48 hours of non-stop motion and not exactly sure what I just ate for dinner. This is the point where i start to wonder what exactly I've gotten myself into, or at least I would have wondered had i not completely passed out on my bed.
Breakfast came too soon. We had a lot to do that third day so by default the call to breakfast was ungodly early. I am by no means a morning person, walking dead might be pushing my level of enthusiasm for the morning hours. But I was in EGYPT! I was going to do my best to be alive, awake, alert, and enthusiastic in these wee early hours.
Breakfast looked really good: Rolls and pastries, fresh fruit, a man would gladly cook you an omelet for a smile. But then there was the orange juice; orange juice and nothing but orange juice.
So I got some. I had to! Breakfast requires some form of liquid to go down properly! So yes i got some, but I was not going to be happy about it.
I'd eaten almost the entire bagel and couldn't hold off on the orange juice any longer, i raised the glass, took a swig, and BAAM! Heaven in a glass! It was amazing, magical, spectacular, and so much more.
The oranges in Egypt don't receive as much water as they do in the States, a side effect other than being smaller is that they have a more concentrated taste.
Even though this fresh squeezed pulpy juice is generally not to my liking, i have tried every orange juice i have found since hoping to find something even remotely close to that wonderful breakfasting experience in Luxor when i sat with a glass full of amazingness and watched hot air balloons gently drift over the mountains and disappear into the Valley of the Kings. Egypt and I were going to be friends.

Posted by: Maura Denny, Egypt

Want to Intern Abroad??

For students interested in foreign affairs, the government, and gaining more international experience, the U.S. State Department has many opportunities. The internships are available either in the spring or fall semester or for 10 weeks over the summer. Students can choose between working in D.C. or one the hundreds of embassy posts internationally. The student intern brochure says that of the many possibilities "interns may write reports on human rights issues, assist with trade negotiations, assist with citizen’s services or visa work, help Americans in distress abroad, or organize conferences or visits of high-level officials. Others may research economic or environmental issues, write news stories, work on web pages or help produce electronic journals." The deadlines end fairly early and along with an electronic application students submit a personal statement explaining any experience abroad, why they are interested in the internship and the post they requested. This summer I'm going to be interning in the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana, Mexico. I'm interested in checking out the immigration issues there first hand and seeing how the U.S. government functions abroad. Without a doubt it should be an incredible learning experience. For more information visit the U.S. Department of State Student Opportunities Page.



Posted by: Clare, Seville, Spain, Spring 2007