Cheers, Cheerio and Cheerios by Kristen Spicker

I love London. It’s that simple. After only five days of living in the city I have already been tempted to cancel my lease for next year in Athens and take up permanent residence in the United Kingdom. Every morning I wake up and look outside my bedroom window and sigh from the sheer joy of staying in such an astounding city.

When I began packing for my stay across the pond, multiple people warned me of the grey skies, rain and cold weather. So far, that’s the exact opposite of what I’ve experienced. As I’m typing this, it’s 55 degrees and sunny. Dead serious. It hasn’t been under 50 degrees since I’ve arrived and it rained only a little bit for one day.

London has to be one of the prettiest cities in the Spring. Even though it’s an industrialized city, there is still a lot of green space with small parks located on nearly every other corner. Plus, the buildings and architecture are absolutely gorgeous. The British have done an excellent job at preserving old buildings, so while walking down a street, it’s fairly common to pass a building where a lord or chancellor used to live.

It’s bizarre to consider how old London is, especially compared to the United States. There is just so much history and culture down every street. While on a bus tour (where my camera unfortunately wasn’t working), I passed everything from new attractions like the Millennium Bridge, feature in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One, and the London Eye to older ones such as the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey.

One thing that I didn’t realize about London is that it’s like the New York City of Europe. I didn’t automatically assume that every person I ran into would be a Londoner, but I figured it would be a high majority. However, it’s very much a melting pot of other nationalities. I hear a new accent every day, and from actual working citizens of England, not just tourists. Even better, the people are rather lovely. Although I don’t have to experience a language difference, the accents are enough to make simple sentences and words sound foreign. Thankfully, everyone I’ve spoken to has been understanding and helpful, even though I’m sure they were sick of my blank face and constant “What?” “Sorry,” and “Can you repeat that?”

Though it’s early in my stay, I already know that choosing to study in London is easily the best decision I’ve made since coming to Ohio University. In less than a week, I’ve already learned and experienced so much more than I would’ve expected. I’d love to blog more, but the park outside my flat that’s covered in picnic blankets and sunlight is calling my name.

Cheerio!

The heart of Toledo by Rebecca McKinsey

I won’t lie and say I came to Spain without holding onto any stereotypes. And after a week and a half here, during which I have spent time in both Madrid and Toledo (the city where I will live and study this quarter), I am far from an expert on this place. However, my time here has already served to shatter many of the expectations that arrived with me, while continuing to comically uphold others.

One of the things few of us expected was to arrive during the rebajas season. This word, which means sales or discounts in Spanish, describes a time vastly different from the weekly sales we’re used to seeing all year in the United States. There are two month-long rebajas seasons in Spain, and basically these times are Black Friday on steroids. For the entire month, almost all of the stores here offer major discounts on the majority of their items. We came at the perfect time to buy souvenirs and gifts (as well as, of course, a sampling of the gorgeous clothes they sell here and the uber-necessary trendy boots that help us stand out a little less). Everywhere we go, signs in the store windows shout out an invitation to partake in their savings — and we’re only too happy to oblige.

As we have traversed the streets of Toledo exploring the city and sniffing out sales, an interesting detail about the stores has made itself clear to me. The storekeepers, especially those of the smaller stores, act in a manner almost impossible to find in the United States. As we peruse a store’s offerings, the owners are only too eager to answer questions and offer commentary. Not only that, but they are more than willing to remove a watch from its box so we can try it on, or let us slip on a pair of earrings to let us see if we like the way they look and feel — again, not a common occurrence in the United States. Even without entering a store, we’re able to get to know the storeowners — they keep their doors wide open and often step out onto the street to chat with each other and greet passerby.

This open and inviting attitude is manifested in the large majority of Spanish people I have met in Toledo. With the people here, physical contact is more expected and much more common. The customary greeting is a kiss on both cheeks, but the mindset goes further than that. When walking or talking with someone, a touch on the arm or back is common. Our professors, who insist we call them by their first names, stand six inches away when they’re answering a question. It takes a little time to become accustomed to the extremely physical nature of the people here, but this is just one more way we are made to feel at home.

I have seen only two cities in Spain so far, but the contrast between the two has taught me quite a bit. My first two days in Spain were spent in Madrid. It is a large city, one in which I found myself lost several times. It is loud and crazy, and no matter where I was, I always saw masses of people and cars. It is busy, and at night, there are dozens of things to do.

However, as exciting as Madrid was, arriving in Toledo was like coming home. Toledo is smaller and quieter. You can walk almost everywhere, and around every corner is some object or site that is rife with history. Although some people I have met here are bored with Toledo and prefer the hustle and bustle of cities like Madrid or Barcelona, I have already fallen in love with this small, picturesque city and its warm, open people. I can’t wait to spend the next two months here.

Being a Gringa by Kathryn Mitchell

I’m not a stranger to travel.  I’ve been to different parts of the world, seen many different things and experienced more than I have the patience or paper to document.  It’s a defining part of who I am, but coming to Mérida was different than all those times I stepped off an airplane.  I have never entered a country without having a return flight home two weeks later, perhaps even less.  While driving from Cancún down a dirt highway through the Yucatecan forests, I realized that I would not be returning in this direction for two and a half more months.  This was my new home.

I’ve never been so frustrated and amazed at the same time.  I’m an intermediate Spanish speaker, but the language barrier here is incredible.  There are just so many things that I don’t know how to do and, while that in itself is an adventure, it equally pushes me towards fluency because in short, it is absolutely necessary.  Without the ability to speak Spanish here, I wouldn’t even be able to have a conversation with my mamá about the weather—something that Americans talk about when in an awkward silence.  The only awkward silences here are knowing what to say, but not knowing how to say it.  I’m trapped in this little English bubble and I’m working to find a way out.

To begin, I know where nothing is.  I can’t tell up or down, east or west, in or out.  I’m so disoriented by this city of 800,000 people that the only thing I can do is figure it out.  So I went old school, put my GPS-enabled iPhone 4 away and looked at a giant map.  I studied this thing and approximated bus routes in order to get around the city – to school, to grocery stores, to shopping centers and to absolutely gorgeous sites.  I need to know where a laundromat is, where I can buy basic necessities and where I can find some culture.  The only word for what I have experienced in this last week is culture shock.

This is mainly because, not only is Mérida very different to me, but I am very different to it.  I am a fair-skinned, blonde-haired young woman who quite obviously does not know her way around; this is not a city when foreigners are a dime a dozen.  When American girls walk down the streets to school, the air is filled with whistles and exclamations of “Mamacita!” and “Ayiyiyi!”  Even in jeans and a v-neck tshirt, I have not had a quiet stroll yet.  In the clubs, or the discotecas, I have had Mexican girls come up to me and ask to touch my blonde hair, as they have never seen it before; in only a week, it has been braided three times by both men and women.

So far, we’ve traveled to the beach twice (it’s about 30 minutes away).  After getting lost for an hour and a half in the back streets of Progreso, we finally found the rest of our friends, sat back and enjoyed the sand (sorry, friends in the snow).  It was hot, we walked a lot and had no idea where we were, while getting hollered at on every corner.  But the truth is, getting lost was my favorite part of the day.  I got to photograph beautifully dilapidated houses, which were basically four cement walls with tin tied down over the top.  Laundry was hanging outside from frayed rope, stray dogs were running through the streets and children in dirty clothing were riding their bikes with bent spokes and tattered tassels from the handlebars.  I saw more in that hour than I have all year in the United States.

I am slowly but surely discovering how to fit into this new world, this new society, in order to make a niche for myself here in Mérida, México.  Within only a week, I find myself forgetting certain English words and my spelling proficiency is rapidly decreasing.  I’ll read something in English and in my head, I hear it in Spanish.  I’m having dreams about the Mexican culture.  I rode the city buses for the first time, proficiently communicated over the telephone and directed our taxi driver around the city to get to our house (of which I have now memorized the address).  I’m beginning to understand the Spanish Channel and I am slowly comprehending my Mayan Prose and Legends class.

The best way to integrate oneself into a culture is to speak the language.  Ask questions, make comments, read everything out loud.  For the most part, that’s the hardest part of fluency.  That’s my project for the next ten weeks: speak.  It’s why I’m here and it’s something I want to be able to do for the rest of my life.  The culture shock is immense but it is the most exhilarating feeling I’ve had in a long time.  ¡Bienvenido a México!

First Day in Vietnam by Marika Lee

My first reaction to Vietnam was very overwhelming. When we walked out of the Ho Chi Minh airport, about 2,000 people were standing outside. I guess they were waiting for people. Anyway, it was crazy and very loud. We got on a bed bus and drove ten hours from Ho Chi Minh to Nha Trang. At first, all I could see was countryside. There were a lot of mountains and rice patties. When we got closer to Nha Trang, we could see the ocean, which has blue water spotted with rocks and islands. When we got to Nha Trang, we walked around and that was  very different from anything I have ever experienced. I went to a few shops, where we were targeted by street merchants since we look like obvious tourists.

Everything is so much different from the U.S. People are selling stuff everywhere: on the street, on the beach, inside restaurants. Most of them are selling book, sunglasses and bracelets. I don’t think anyone has bought anything from a one of them. Everything is so cheap here. I had lunch today at a nice restaurant on the beach and it only cost $5.00. I’ve been here almost two days and I don’t think I’ve spent more than $30.

Nha Trang has a lot of tourists. My Vietnamese teammates said that I am staying on one of the “tourist streets.” I hope to get out of the city and see a more residential Vietnam. There are a lot of thing that I am looking forward to doing. One is riding on a motorbike.