The Furthest East I've Ever Been

During my semester abroad, we traveled to many places. We hiked in the Swiss Alps, sampled wine in Alsace, ate waffles in Brussels. However, I was a little taken aback by a little country called Estonia.

Estonia’s capital city, Tallinn, is about 3 hours away by car from the border with Russia and about 2 hours away by boat from Helsinki, Finland. I was expecting a cold, barren place (think Bratislava as depicted in “EuroTrip”) when we traveled to Tallinn, Estonia, but what I found a neat, quirky little city.


I was very impressed with Tallinn. We stayed in the “up-town,” the older section. The city’s medieval walls and town hall still stand. There is a town square with neat little alleyways and streets jutting off of it. The downtown area was just as modern as any other major city though. Sure enough, there were McDonalds’ and 5-story shopping malls. What impressed me most about Tallinn, however, was how many people spoke English and how well they spoke it. I was quite glad that they did, because I could not understand Estonian at all. Imagine a few common English words, then double up on the vowels and add a few extra syllables, and you’ve got something that resembles Estonian. For example, a souvenir store is called “suuveniiridid.” Streets bore names such as “Toompea” and “Rahukohtu,” while signs advertised things such as “Kohvik-Restoran Merevaikus Patkuli Vaateplats.” Don’t ask me what it means. You’d think “Pood” would mean “food,” but it doesn’t.

The country made the news most recently when it knocked down a Soviet memorial from one of Tallinn’s parks. There’s also a museum of communism, featuring lots of memorabilia from the Soviet era. Some friends and I went to a palace that formerly belonged to Peter the Great. What was once one of his summer palaces was turned into an art museum. Right next door, however, we discovered the official residence of the Estonian president. On account of the building’s color scheme, we named it the Pink House. Oh, those wacky Estonians...

Estonia is not a backwards country. Their foreign ministry is housed in an ultra-modern building, and the club scene is comparable to those of other European countries (complete with lasers and smoke machines). However, the country maintains a certain degree of charm.

So, taenan for stopping by!

- Posted by Dave Hardison, IES EU Program, Fall 2007

Todo bom

While studying in Salvador, Brazil, my favorite hangout was a place called Mercado do Peixe; or in English, the Fish Market. It is a very cheap outdoor collection of bars and restaurants that fills a parking lot with plastic tables and chairs. It sits next to the beach, and when cars aren't blasting Brazilian music from their stereos, you can hear the waves crashing against the rocks that separate the market from the sand. Almost every night ended at the Fish Market, and because of our constant presence, our group of American students and Brazilian locals became close with our favorite waiter, DC. When I think back about Brazil, I always wind up reminiscing about the Fish Market, and all the great memories that were made there.

American-style football club

Among the many popular cultural exports of America in Japan, which are so vast and include things from Pizza Hut to Mustang convertibles, I found it odd that American Football hadn't quite been popularized yet. The differences between a big 10 school to a private foreign language university are stark and revealing when it comes to intercollegiate athletics.
At school, I would see the "American Football Club" practicing on the dirt field behind the student services center almost every day after class, but I never once heard if or when they were playing a game.
So I asked my host mother, seemingly unaware of Kansai Gaidai's football club, who speculated that maybe they weren't very good and they didn't want anyone coming to their games.
This puzzled me. Who wouldn't want to go and cheer on their school's football team? Maybe Penn State Football culture and being at a division 1 school had made me unwaware to the fact that there are some people in this world to whom football is not life.
So, I never did find out if the Kansai Gaidai American Football Club ever played games with other schools. Being a "club" I assumed that they did compete, but on their own time and money. It was refreshing to be at a school that actually had a non-existent athletic program, but instead, a large body of self-supporting student organized clubs and circles, that benefited the students academically and socially.
I really kind of ended up enjoying life minus big-time collegiate athletics, and I learned way more Japanese without football hoopla getting in the way.

Bruxelles.. Tu me manques!

Being a peer adviser for the Office of International Programs has enabled me to share my life-changing study abroad experience with other Penn-Staters. Sometimes, when I’m talking with another student, I get nostalgic for Brussels… I wish I could snap my fingers and be back in my apartment on Rue Veydt! I wish I could walk around the corner and browse for breakfast at Delhaize (our neighborhood grocery store), shop on the trendy Avenue Louise, have a beer at Café Belga… I could go on and on.

Even though my study abroad experience in Brussels ended in May of 2007, a part of my heart will always be there. Every time I look at pictures of the magnificent Grand Place (arguably the most beautiful square in Europe), the Manneken Pis, or the Atomium (Brussels’ version of the Eiffel Tower), I think of all the great memories I have and I feel like I’m there again.

Studying abroad is an experience that you will always carry with you... as cliché as it sounds. Never in my life would I have expected to fall in love with a city like I did with Bruxelles.

Posted by: Jen, Brussels , Spring 2007

colectivos

Buses are the most popular way to get around Buenos Aires. You can get virtually anywhere in the entire city for around 25 cents. The bus drivers are mad men-they zip and speed along in these huge buses, halting to a stop whenever they see someone waiting at one of the bus stops along the route.

Finding these stops can sometimes be a hassle. Some stops have well marked poles that clearly list what buses come to that spot, others have random stickers that can be tacked onto a pole or somewhere on the outside of the building where the bus stops, and then there are others that you somehow have to just intuitively know stop in that place.

Riding the buses in Argentina was a lot different than riding the buses here. People are not afraid to cram onto the bus in order to make room for as many other passengers as possible. It's kind of like a no man left behind mentality-during rush hour, you can bet that you'll be getting to know the people around you quite intimately. Whereas here, sometimes I think people want to maintain there own personal bubble at the expense of a few other students that in my mind, would be able to fit on the bus if everyone would just occupy the little nooks and crannies. Some days, I just want to show the other people on the white loop where they should stand for optimal occupancy.

The best way to look like a native porteño is to break out your Guía-T, the bus bible that breaks the entire city down into a grid and has all the routes in the back telling you what streets the bus travels on. To use the guide, you find where you are on one page and grid, you look up where you want to go on another page and grid, and then you try to match up a bus that travels to both places. Once you learn how to use the Guía-T, you start walking a lot less.

Posted by: Jamie, Buenos Aires, Spring 2007

Sydney- I LOVE this city!

It's a little over two months since I was in Sydney and I am definitely missing it.  Sydney had so many amazing things that Penn State doesn't have, I am finding it is the small things that I am missing most.  After a night out with friends I always took time to walk barefoot across the beach back to my apartment.  I miss people telling me that I'm Canadian, or, at least that I have a "very strong Canadian accent" which I always gave me a good laugh.  I also miss trivia night.  Every Wednesday, my friends and I visited the Randwick Rugby Club for weekly trivia.  The first week we were there, it was a little funny that we were the only team under the age of forty.  We were loud, we laughed, we asked all the teams next to us for help when there was some question about Australian history that we were clueless about.  Before I knew it, our team became a regular fixture of trivia night and the host always came over to us as soon as we entered.  He helped get tables for us to push together or extra chairs.  I truly felt like a local and no longer an international student.  The host and the other teams always looked forward to our team name of the week, with my personal favorite being "Hillary Clinton '08"  (As if they couldn't tell that we were Americans before that, haha.)  Now back at Penn State, I have to say, that is one of the things I miss most.  Wednesday night trivia at the Randwick Rugby Club.  Our team even won a few times, but it was the time spent together with my friends that was truly the best.

Matt Shiskowski, Fall 2007, University of New South Wales: Sydney, Australia

1 Month Retrospective

It has been about a month since I returned from my semester abroad in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. Looking back, I really learned a lot. Not just in the academic sense (I could tell you that Croatia is likely to join the European Union in 2009 or that Leonard Orban from Romania is the European Commissioner for Multilingualism, but who wants the hear that?), but I learned a lot about interaction with other cultures.

There are quite a few stereotypes about Germans: beer-guzzling, super-physically fit, insular, efficient, fun-hating, industrious workers. Well, there is some truth to some of those (try drinking three liters of beer and eating an entire chicken in the span of 4 hours). However, I found the Germans to be some of the most interesting and welcoming people I’ve ever encountered. For example, at dinner my first night in Freiburg, a friend’s mother commented on my poor table manners by German standards. However, she laughed it off, stating that she understood the same manners were acceptable in America, and handed me another serving of lasagna.

I lived with 5 Germans in a Wohnheimsgemeinschaft (literally “living community,” but “dormitory” is easier). I admit I was a little concerned about my ability to speak German, their ability to speak English, and any lost-in-translation moments that might occur as a result. As it turns out, they spoke nothing but German with me, which really helped my language-speaking ability. As we sat in the kitchen together and joked around, I learned about regional differences, and they taught me some local slang (some of my favorite insults: Beckenrandschwimmer: “swimming pool edge swimmer,” colloquially a wuss. Festnetztelefonierer: “land-line caller,” someone who isn’t up to date technologically). In doing so, I really came to embrace the German culture. They have a real respect for nature, as evidenced by the success of Green environmental policies. They have a passion for travel, and as such, an appreciation for world cultures. The local Canyon Pizza equivalent, a meat sandwich with yogurt sauce called Döner kebap, was invented by a Turkish-German immigrant. They take pride in what they do; the German Reinheitsgebot, a law enacted in the 16^th century and still enforced, upholds the quality of German beer (fans of Natty Light need not apply).

It’s not that I was culturally insensitive at the get-go. My semester abroad really taught me some lessons that are not easily learned in a traditional classroom setting. So, wherever you go, bask in the local culture!

-- David Hardison

Freiburg Stadtmitte: Bertoldsbrunnen