Argentina feels like a good fit for me.  The first thing I was told after getting off the plane was that “Argentinians care about two things, Carne and futbol”.  Never have truer words been spoken.  After 35 hours awake, I didn’t sleep.  I went to a soccer game.  To watch my host, Luciano, play.  It went…alright.  For lunch I tried what is likely to be my number one love for this trip–Milenesa Napolitana.  This is thin veal that has been breaded and fried to perfection and then covered in tomato sauce and melted cheese; a meat pizza.  Dinner is always late in Argentina so I had some time to wait.   The next day I got to eat asado, the favored food in Argentina.  It is several cuts of meat from flank steak to pork belly, all cooked over a grill of charcoal.  It was amazing, cooked to perfection.

The following week I was allowed a day out of school to follow the rugby team to a tournament.   This was a new experience for me.  First off rugby, which is not huge in the United States, and secondly the whole atmosphere surrounding the tournament.  Teams are incredibly intense, and the sport is incredibly taxing on the players.  Also we went to several art museums in Buenos Aires, the Malba and the national fine arts museum. Both were beautiful with a fantastic collection of paintings, including Frida Kahlo and Francisco Goya.

Lastly, my arrival was timed with the Copa America.  The day before and the day after a game, there is nothing that people here talk about other than that.  Soccer is so important to the public that politicians wait for the team to win before delivering news.  Last night the finals happened, and Argentina lost in penalty kicks to Chile.  As a result, Messi quit along with much of the team.  The city was distraught.  I have never seen such passion for a game before, not even the Bay Area’s love for the Warriors.  It has been an amazing experience here and I will be sad to leave someday.

I have been in Argentina for two weeks already, attending Belgrano Day School, and time is just flying by me! My host, Martina, and her family have been incredibly kind and welcoming. I have had the opportunity to make some amazing new friends, as well as explore the beautiful city of Buenos Aires. Although I am forging a second home here for myself, there are some distinct differences between Buenos Aires and the bubble that is the Bay Area.

The school itself is pretty different from Athenian. Belgrano Day School has a very strict dress code and students are not allowed to wear anything other than the uniform they are given. Almost every single class is an hour-and-a-half long, making it like a long period at Athenian, and each school day has ten class periods. The difference is that a long period here is made up of two short periods, so in reality the ten-period long day is just five long classes. In between each class, there are 15-20 minute breaks. Students choose an orientation at the beginning of the school year, either humanities, sciences, or linguistics. If you take humanities for example, you never have to take a science class because that does not come in your orientation. The only classes every single student has to take outside of their orientation are math and Argentinian law.

For me, the culture shock was fairly mild, but it did present itself when I first arrived. First off, the driving. People do whatever they want out on the roads and no one ever stops for pedestrians on the street. I have to walk into the middle of the street in traffic in order to announce to drivers that I have to get across. It is dangerous, but I’ve managed to get used to it.

Second, the most challenging thing, is the language barrier. The first week was the hardest. I took an advanced level of Spanish before heading out on exchange and I thought this would sufficiently prepare me for Argentina. I was (sort of) wrong. They speak very fast here and pronounce a lot of letters differently than the Spanish that I was taught. Also, the teenagers use a lot of slang. At first, this barrier freaked me out and I did not step out of my comfort zone in fear that my Spanish would be inferior. Once I overcame my fear of not knowing the language, I realized that I understand more than I thought I did.  I have made great friends here and have used a limited amount of the Spanish that I was taught. I am so thankful that my friends here are willing to speak English, while I try on occasion to speak in my horrible Spanish.

I have grown to love the two kisses on the cheek you are greeted with every time you see a friend or an acquaintance–or even someone you don’t know! It creates a welcoming environment. Everyone here wants to be your friend and asks about America and wants to get to know you. The food here is AMAZING and very centered on meat. Trying a new Argentinian meal every day is honestly so thrilling.

I have only been here two weeks, and yet I am already dreading the day I will have to leave my friends behind and head back home. The school I am attending has presented me with a very welcoming environment and I have made friends I am sure that I will keep in touch with long after I leave.

Argentina has made me step out of my comfort zone, and I have learned so many little things about myself since I got here. The friends I have made, the food I have tried, the places I’ve been, and the whole experience of living in Argentina has been an overwhelmingly amazing experience so far. I can’t wait to see what the next month will be like here!

I am currently attending Markham College in Lima, Peru and I am living with my host, Ariana and her family. To say the least, my first two weeks in Lima have been unbelievably exciting, crazy, and all together, amazing. Lima is vastly different from the Bay Area. Although it has taken some adjusting, I already love it here.

The first thing that I noticed about the Peruvian culture was that everyone is extremely friendly and welcoming. Peruvians value hospitality more than any other culture I know. My host mom, Rosmery, immediately wanted to make sure that I felt at home and did everything in her power to make that happen. The next thing that I noticed was that Peruvians LOVE their food. The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of different Peruvian dishes, each one more delicious than the last. I know for certain that I will not go hungry while I’m here!

While Markham has many of the same values and principles as Athenian, it is entirely different. For starters, Markham is much bigger in terms of the number of students, and almost all of them have been attending the school their entire lives. The next main difference is that Markham is much stricter and more formal.  Everyone is required to wear a uniform and cellphones are prohibited. It took a while to get used to.  I definitely got lost many times during the first week, but now I feel like I have been here all along. The entire Markham community is very close-knit and everyone was very excited to welcome me into their lifestyle.

The largest challenge for me living in Peru has been the language barrier. Although most of Markham’s classes are taught in English, all of the students speak Spanish with each other outside of class. On top of that, my host parents don’t speak any English at all! It was difficult to communicate with everyone at first, but I am learning to be confident with my Spanish skills and have already improved so much.

Overall, my first couple weeks here have been so much fun. I have made so many great friends. I am so glad that I get the opportunity to experience firsthand the everyday life of a Peruvian student. Whether it’s meeting alpacas, learning to dance the salsa, or trying a new Peruvian dish, every day brings more surprises. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for me for the rest of my exchange!

Since my return from exchange I’ve constantly been asked if I miss it. I’d like to say that I miss it with all my heart, but I don’t. Living in South Africa became my way of life. It’s difficult to miss it when I still feel like it hasn’t quite ended yet. I’m dreading the day that I wake up and realize I’m never again going to put on my Bridge House uniform in the morning, and I may never again eat my favorite banana bread from the school’s café.

I learned so much on exchange, both about myself and others. While the fact that I had the opportunity to live in Africa still amazes me, when people ask me what my favorite parts of exchange were, I often think of the things people don’t expect to hear. I loved adventuring around the Western Cape every weekend and exploring the beautiful landscape, but some of my favorite parts were much simpler. On the drive home every day I admired the beautiful orange sunsets, and I loved spending time at home with my host family and my friends from school. Being on exchange made even the most average things special, and it gave me a chance to see what life was like as a normal teenager halfway around the world.

I also had some amazing experiences that I could never find in the Bay Area. Every weekend brought a new adventure and gave me a chance to see the different sides of South Africa. One of the most memorable experiences I had was visiting the local township. These are informal settlements that were mainly formed during the time of apartheid and are the biggest indicators of racial segregation in South Africa. They are also centers for culture and life. We got the chance to visit small schools within the township. Choruses of adorable five year olds sang to us in English, Afrikaans, and Xhosa, and they loved listening to us attempt to speak their local languages. We were able to learn even more about the history of racial segregation, and it gave me a better understanding of what inequality truly is, rather than solely talking about it in a classroom.

Visiting the township was an important part of understanding life in South Africa, but I also loved touring all around Cape Town and exploring Franschhoek Valley. I observed all of the many similarities and differences between the U.S. and South Africa. On the drive to school every morning I passed by beautiful vineyards and farmlands that were quite the opposite to the typical Californian suburbia. Cape Town felt incredibly similar to San Francisco, until I was reminded where I actually was when I looked behind the tall office buildings to see giant mountains in the distance. I loved walking beach side in Camps Bay and listening to the local music, and we often visited the local Waterfront to explore small shops and to eat all of the delicious food Cape Town has to offer. We visited the local aquarium, traveled to the very tip of Africa, and I even visited Robben Island, which was used as a prison during the time of apartheid and is known for its most famous inmate, Nelson Mandela. Last but not least, I did get the chance to pet some adorable cheetahs. I loved going on a safari and seeing all of the incredible animals I thought I would only see in movies.

I could go on and on about my exchange just using cheesy clichés. It truly was the best eight weeks of my life, but I don’t want to feel like my experience only lasted for two months. The great part of exchange is that it actually becomes part of your life. I can still message my South African friends anytime I want, and I’m so incredibly excited for my exchange, Ella, to come visit me in California. It’s crazy to me that some of my closest friends now live halfway across the world, but it also makes me appreciate them–and my friends here at home–even more. I am so grateful for my beloved second family in Franschhoek and for all of the people that made my time at Bridge House so special.

Dankie Suid Afrika, for everything.

I’ve been in Germany for roughly two weeks now and have had quite the adventure so far. In my first few days I was staying with my exchange, Petra, and her family. She showed me her hometown of Marl and we spend the next few days touring around Germany, going to cities like Hamburg and Husum. Things here are look as though they are out of a movie with cobble-stone streets and cottage-like buildings. After our little adventures, it was time to go to school.

Whereas in the US we have semesters and quarters to our school year, in Salem the school year is divided up into six epochs. Similar to our interim trips, students travel with their classes to different sites for some outside-of-the-classroom learning before the start of the last epoch. I got to join the group to Westerhever to study the biology of the Wadden Sea. We were studying the tide, which is significantly different than it is back in California; at low tide, the water is completely gone and at high tide it will have risen several meters high. Every morning after breakfast, we would hop on our bikes and ride through the sheep fields to the water and spend the day learning about all the organisms that live there. While biology is very exciting, what I loved more than anything else were the evenings. I got to learn of a game called tischtennis, which literally translates to table tennis but is very different than Ping-Pong. In this game, there is no limit on how many people can join. Everyone gathers around the table in two lines and the person at the front starts by passing it to the person across from them and then moving to the second line. If you miss or hit it out of bounds, you’re out. The game goes until there are two people left and they ralley for the win. At first I was always the first one out. By the end of the week, and with the help of new German friends, I even made it to the final round!

After that amazing week I was both sad to leave Westerhever and excited to go to Salem. In Salem, school is divided in two systems: the German-speaking group and the English-speaking. Obviously, I was put in the English-speaking group, but all of my new friends from the week before were in the German system. Despite having been nervous to meet all the new people, I can’t say that I wasn’t excited for a biology lesson taught in English for a change.

The environment at Salem is very different than Athenian. Instead of our usual six classes, here I have thirteen. Students meet with each class a maximum of twice a week, which has certainly taken some getting used to. Additionally, instead of moving to different classes with different people throughout the day, the people in an individual class always stay the same. Each class has one main classroom and only leaves its designated room for art, sport, or science classes. I like this aspect as it has made navigating the giant castle a bit easier. The day-to-day schedule is similar to our Monday schedule at Athenian with three long periods with breaks in between. The only difference being that lunch is at the end of the day at 2:00 and not in the middle at 12:00. After lunch, school is over and students then go to their various activities. I spend most of my time with my friends, going to the nearby lake of Bagersee, or hanging out in the torkel, which is a café located inside the castle.

Though things are very different here I’m having loads of fun and cannot wait for the rest of my adventure! 🙂

 

 

Time does fly. My exchange in England has ended in the blink of an eye. It seems like it was just yesterday when I stepped out of the cab and didn’t know where my house was. I am now gone, but with the most beautiful memories, ever, in my entire life.

A lot of things have been going on since my last blog and I cannot type them all out in a blog, so I will just write a summary here. My host families were kind enough to take me to several places, including absolutely gorgeous things like the London Eye and Harrods. England, whether it be the countryside or Central London, is always beautiful in a way that I cannot explain. It’s not like America. England gives out a different vibe. I really don’t know how to put it. You have to be there to know what it is. Overall, England and Wellington are the best things I have ever gotten a chance to experience and I regret nothing.

If you are reading this blog, no matter who you are, I really encourage you to go on exchange and, more specifically, to Wellington in England. Words cannot express how grateful I am that I picked England as one of my options. It is an absolutely amazing experience that happens once in a lifetime, so you have to grab it when it’s there. Words can’t express how I feel right now. This exchange has changed me significantly. I am no longer the person I used to know a month ago, before I got on the plane to England. The friends I met every day there have changed me, made a better me. I have learnt so many valuable things that I will never forget. Of course, there were very hard times when I just couldn’t help but cry and say to myself “Why did I do this? Why leave a place so familiar and go on this exchange to a school where I know nothing and no one?” But there were good times also.

Before I never missed anything or anyone, ever. Now, whenever I think about the days when I was at Wellington, I miss them so so much: all the jokes we laughed at, all the food we had in that dining hall, all the classes we went to together. I miss everything and everyone there. People bring memories into our lives and then they take them away, but I know for a fact that the memories I made there will never fade away. I loved every second of it… Believe me, no matter which country you choose, whether it be a bad or good exchange, you will not regret anything. You will bring back with you lessons no one else can teach you and memories you cannot make anywhere else. Consider it as a life-changing decision. Reach out and take it. I cannot guarantee that everything will be perfect, but I know you can do it.

Thank you Wellington, and P.

 

In Australia, I have experienced things I never thought I would by going on exchange. Thanks to Sandi Crogan, the other exchanges and I have been able to ride in a hot air balloon, hike the base of Uluru, enjoy a kangaroo sanctuary, spend the day exploring the West MacDonnell ranges, ride a camel, and help out the less fortunate of the Northern Territory. I feel like I have been accepted by everyone here, not only at school, but also by the people who live in Australia.

Waking up at four in the morning was such a hassle. It was cold outside and there was no sign of sunlight. We were picked up at St. Philip’s at 5:00 AM and driven to the outback where we noticed a massive balloon being blown up. We were all awake in anticipation for our hot air balloon ride. From the moment we climbed into the basket, we always felt like we were going to tip over and fall out. Once we got 500 feet in the air and looked out at the Australian outback, we were still a little nervous. When it was time to land, we slid across the tops of trees, bushes, then finally the ground. Because the balloon was still up and the wind was strong, the basket tipped about 60 degrees towards the ground. After we rolled out and packed up the balloon, everyone got a glass of orange juice and we learned about the first hot air balloon rides.

When beginning our weekend long trip to Uluru, the Olgas, and King’s Canyon, I was scared of having to hike so many kilometers each day. On the six-hour bus ride, we made stops at a camel farm and some small towns with convenience stores and gas stations. I was amazed by the camel burgers that most places sold. They taste much better than kangaroo tail. All of the exchanges had quality bonding time on and off the bus. Once we arrived at Uluru, our guide surprised us with a 12 kilometer walk around the base of Uluru. After our road trip all I wanted to do was sleep, but once we got going there was no stopping the fun. It took us just about three hours to complete, but we were able to learn about the rock and the aboriginal history and culture. Soon after, we drove to a lookout to watch the sunset on Uluru and witness the magnificent color of the rock.

Out of my entire experience here so far, I know it would not have been as much fun without getting to hang out with my now life-long friends from India, Nepal, Canada, South Africa, Germany, Colombia, and Mexico. They made every trip and adventure ten times more exciting and memorable. I will miss them all when we go home and I cannot wait to see them again someday!!

I’m currently attending the Regents International School located outside of the city of Pattaya, Thailand. I’m participating in the first year of the International Baccalaureate program (Year 12), which sounds insanely difficult.  Luckily, I’m not required to complete any of the harder curriculums. There are about 70 people in my grade, so it’s slightly smaller than at Athenian. The classes I’m taking include psychology, geography, environmental sciences, and theory of knowledge.

Before setting into school though, I got to spend three days exploring Bangkok. I got to go on a river tour that took me through a bunch of different neighborhoods in the city. My three days also included lots of temples and markets, one of which was in Bangkok’s China Town (it’s very different from the one in San Francisco). The best market I visited was the Chatuchak Market, where I got to try some of the street food. My favorite by far was the coconut ice cream, which was served in half of a coconut shell. One of the highlights of my three days in Bangkok was the Grand Palace, which was previously used as the primary residence for the King, but is now only used for royal ceremonies.

After my tour of Bangkok, I was driven to the city of Pattaya, which is a coastal city about an hour and a half south of Bangkok. My school is just a short drive outside of Pattaya. I asked my friends here to describe Regents since I was having trouble figuring out where to begin. I got lots of responses like “cool” and “dope” but my friend Cati decided on one word, which was “well-rounded.” I definitely agree with her. Everyone at Regents is not only incredibly smart, but also nice, fun, and somehow relaxed even though they have so much schoolwork. The school itself is very diverse, even more so than Athenian. There are students and teachers from all over the world. There are even a few students from America (from Texas, Indiana, and Florida). It’s nice having them around, so we can talk every once and a while about real football and how great In-N-Out is. A lot of my friends have attended schools all over the world before coming to Regents. I find this hard to imagine as I’ve lived in the Bay Area my entire life.

The biggest difference for me in Thailand is the weather. It’s insanely hot, and even hotter this year because a lot of Southeast Asia is in a very serious drought. The average temperature during the school day is anywhere from 95 to 105 degrees. I’ve mostly adjusted to the heat now, but sometimes I go outside and I feel like I’m about to melt. Luckily, I’m not alone. Even some of my friends who have been living in Thailand for several years can barely take the heat.

Here at Regents, I’ve staying in the dorms. Although I can’t leave school on weeknights, I’ve been able to see Pattaya and the surrounding areas on the weekends. This past weekend, I was taken out of boarding by one of the gappies to get a full tour of Pattaya, which included brunch and a lot of the time at the beach.

Overall, I’ve been having a great time in Thailand and I still have a lot to look forward to. I can’t wait to see what the rest of my exchange has to offer.

So far I have been in South Africa for two weeks and it has been the best experience of my life. First of all, I thank God for letting me have this wonderful family and my exchange buddy Jonathan Van Vuren and secondly for letting me come to this awesome school, St. Stithian’s Boys College in Johannesburg, South Africa.

I had such an incredible first week because my host family took me to Kruger National Park which is a four-hour drive from Johannesburg.  Kruger National Park is a huge wild safari in the north east of South Africa. There are many entrance gates to this park because it is a gigantic place. One thing you have to know before you go, you must enter early in the morning at like 6 AM because that is the time when wild animals wake up and start to move. Luckily, we saw a big herd of elephant and buffalos as soon as we got in through the entrance gate. I got to see a lots of wild animals that I have never seen in my life, like lion, buffalo, rhino, kudus (deer with fancy horns), giraffe, zebra, and others. When I look through all my pictures on my phone, I still can’t believe that I went to this place.

In my second week, I started attending St. Stithian’s Boys College. There are two different high schools on this campus, one for girls and one for boys. It is an enormous school both in campus size and the number of people compared to The Athenian School. When I first visited this school, I thought it was a village because there is a restaurant, many teacher houses (like our school), a chapel, many sports fields, buildings, gardens, and even ponds. In the boy’s school there are approximately 800 students.  I don’t know about the girl’s school because, apparently, we don’t interact that much with the girls during the school day. The first class starts at 7:25 in the morning, so I have to wake up at 6:00 am every morning, which is very hard for me and I will never get used to this ridiculous wake up time. We have a different schedule every day, just like at Athenian.  Every day from 10:00 to 10:40 we have a tea break, which is just a break. And we also have Chapel every day, which is like our morning meeting at Athenian but with a religious (Christian) purpose. Lunch time runs from 1:15 to 1:45. After lunch, we have only one more class–except for Wednesday, when we can go home before lunch. School normally ends at 2:45 but on Wednesday it ends at 1:30. After school, all students have to do sports for two hours, so normally school ends at about 5:00 pm.

Everyone in South Africa goes crazy about rugby. It is the most popular sport here and most schools have several rugby fields in their school. Luckily, it is rugby season right now so most of the students do rugby–even me. Before I came to South Africa, I thought rugby was a stupid sport because on TV there is a lot of contact between players without any pads, which looks very dangerous. But actually it isn’t as dangerous as I thought because there are rules that keep players safe from dangerous contact. For example, you can’t tackle an opponent in the air, you can only tackle the guy who has the ball, and you are not allowed to tackle above the waist…but there are still many injuries.

At St. Stithian’s, because it is a very traditional and conservative school, there are many rules to follow. One day after chapel, we had hair inspection and I thought I was going to be fine because I am an exchange student. But unfortunately, I got caught because my hair wasn’t short enough for their policy. I decided to embrace the whole culture of this school and country and I had my hair cut short. I look like I am going to the military. I have never had my hair this short in my life so this was a memorable experience for me. I have now figured out how I am going to cut my hair for AWE.

I thought I was used to experiencing other cultures, but every time I face a different culture there are many surprises, both in a good way and bad way. In South Africa, just like its nickname The Rainbow Nation, there are many cultures and languages in one country. Living far away from my home has always been tough for me, but here, I endure easily and it feels like my home now. I have learned incredibly many things and I know this exchange experience will remain in my memory forever.

When I was told that I was going to India I was both ecstatic and nervous. Now that my exchange has come to an end, I am so glad that I decided to come to India. I have less than a week left in my exchange and it is one of the most bittersweet moments in my life. I have made incredible, funny, and amazing friends while I have been on exchange and I am eternally grateful for their friendship.

Before coming on exchange Mark encourages students to research their country. The research that you find online and in books can never really prepare a person for the actual experience of being fully immersed in a new culture and lifestyle for two months. When you are living in a country that requires you to constantly be outside of your comfort zone, you discover new things about yourself. Living in India, I have become more open minded, optimistic, and culturally aware by trying new foods, learning a new language, attending a new school, and by making new friends despite having a cultural and linguistic divide.

Since the last time I wrote I have visited the hills once again. My new host family and I went to a small tourist destination called Kasauli. While in Kasauli I got to try Indian street food, had many encounters with wild monkeys, and had the best Indian food at this small restaurant near the Kasauli Club (it’s like the country club of India). The best part about travelling to India is the food. While in Kasauli I had an Indian street food called Gulab Jamun, an Indian sweet dish. It was delicious!

Sooner than I expected, it was May 13th, my last day of school in India at Vivek High. It’s true time flies when you are having fun! I spent my school days attending the h­­­­­umanities section classes like English, history, political science, legal studies and psychology. The most interesting class I took was psychology. Every day the teacher, Nilama Ma’am, taught the class at least one aspect of Indianism. Ma’am taught us the cultural value and use of traditional items like bindi’s, anklets, and bangles. She even gave me one of her dupatta’s, a thin shawl usually worn with a traditional Indian suit that goes over the chest and shoulders.

Though saying goodbye to my friends and family was hard, I am incredibly excited to be returning home. I wouldn’t trade my experience during exchange for the world. The memories, friendships, and personal growth that I made on exchange are things that I wish all students could experience. To my family, at home and abroad, thank you for making this trip one of a lifetime.

See you soon, India!