Reflections on a year abroad...

So that night has finally come...the long awaited and dreaded and anticipated night before I leave for America. There were times I would kill for this moment and there are other times where I wished it wasn't true. Now as I sit here writing this, I am a mixture of feelings.

Today was an absolutely perfect last day. First of all, it was BEAUTIFUL in Norwich, as in not a cloud in the sky. That made it both lovely for a last day and makes it even harder for me to want to leave. This morning my friend was making pancakes and invited me over for a breakfast feast. After we were stuffed with pancake goodness, we headed into town for the last time. I wish there were more hours in the day, but alas that will just never be. I wish I had more time to take in the town one last time, but I know that all the time I spent in town will have to suffice. After that I came back and watched the American football team here attempted to play baseball or "Rounders" as they call it here. That was very amusing.

My busy day then continued with a visit to my dear British friend, Kirsty, who I only just met this semester. I walked over to her house and we spent some time talking and eating Dominoes pizza that she ordered for us. The best gift she could have given me though, was taking me to her village and other nearby towns. She took me to see her parents, who live about 10 minutes from Norwich and in a proper English village. All of these moments I cherish because it gives me insight into this incredible culture that I perhaps wouldn't get just living on campus. After that she took me to Wymondham, this beautiful old English village. Of course I forgot to bring my camera and kicked myself the entire time for not having it. We went into this Abbey built in 1107 and just absolutely ancient and stunning. Then, unfortunately, I had to return back to campus. Saying good-bye to her was hard because I wish I had more time here to get to know her, cause I know we would become best of friends.

And my day still continued with seeing my dear professor for the last time. I gave him back all the items he let me borrow for the year. He has been such a great mentor this entire trip and always so generous...that was a tough good-bye.

The hardest good-byes that I am having is saying good-bye to my flatmates and the city itself. Every day for 10 months I have lived in close quarters with my five other flatmates and it is just going to be a bit of a transition not having them in my life anymore. The hardest part is the fact that I may never see some of them again. I really could not have asked for better flatmates. I went out with my girls for the last time at the pub for a drink. I am going to spoil them with lots of treats from America next year, I can't wait. I really hope though that sometime in the future our paths will cross and I will be able to see my friends again. Thank goodness for the internet and skype...

So what will I miss when I leave here you may be asking. First of all, I'm going to miss the people. Despite what stereotype precedes the English about being 'cold' it is totally not true. I have experienced nothing but kindness from English people the entire time I've been here. Despite me having come to England with my "Revolutionary War" attitude about the Brits, I really really enjoyed them and will miss them so much.

I am also going to miss the beautiful countryside and ancientness of the country. There are just some parts of England where you can just feel the oldness. And America has NOTHING on the old buildings of England dating back to the Roman times. And the countryside!! I treasure all those country walks I have taken so much...

And yes, I am going to miss the food believe it or not. My second to last night here my flatmate made me "Toad in the hole" which is basically sausages baked into a pastry. SO delicious. I am going to miss the heartiness of English foods and yes, even their "strange" combinations of ingredients.

I am also going to miss the modes of transportation around England. Nothing compares to English trains and buses and their efficiency and cheapness. I hate to say it, but London's transportation systems blows NYC's out of the water. Speaking of London, I am going to miss how accessible it is being only 2 hours from Norwich. Sigh...

Despite all my melancholy-ness today, I am excited to finally return home after so long. I am looking forward to seeing family members, my boyfriend, friends and yes, America itself. I am looking forward to eating American food, driving in my car and sleeping in my own bed. It will be good to be home.

I have grown so much being abroad...finally feeling like an "adult." I learned to be self-sufficient both cooking and providing for myself and not having a "home" to rely on. It is the true test when you are sick or not having a good day or just want a home-cooked meal when those things are not available to you. You have to learn to rely on yourself and deal with the problems on your own. When I lived in London for a month, it taught me to be assertive and always aware of my surroundings. Even though I still have an awful sense of direction, I can trust my judgment more. One of my proudest accomplishments being abroad is the fact that I can navigate London's tubes flawlessly, as well as the city itself. And even though it was a bit of a struggle for a few months being abroad here, I managed to push through the sadness and loneliness and come out on top.

At the end of my journey I feel like I have succeeded and grown so much. If I had the opportunity to do this again, I would do it in a heartbeat. Were there things I could have done differently? Perhaps...I try to never regret things, but I do regret not spending more time with my English friends because I was scared to get too close. I wish I would have not cared and just dealt with the good-byes when the time came. All in all, despite a few rough months, I have had a great study abroad experience that I only wish I could share with others. Oh I am going to miss it here so much. I hope someday I can return not only to England, but to Norwich, this place that has been so much more than a home to me these past 10 months. I am excited though to start the next phase of my life and see where those adventures take me! For now I shall say, "Cheers England! Thank you for an amazing, bittersweet, beautiful and adventurous year of my life."

Apocalypse Now: Stuck in Athens

Do you ever wish when you are on vacation that it could last for only a few more days? How about another week? How about another possible two weeks? Welcome to my situation in Athens, even though it is not exactly an extended vacation by choice!

If you don't know by this point or have been living under a rock, the volcano in Iceland that erupted a few weeks ago is finally making its voice heard by spreading ash all over Europe. The ash has caused airports to be shut down all over Europe for days (and at this point, currently still shut down). And guess where I am? The day before we were supposed to leave to go back to England from Athens we saw that flights were being canceled left and right going back to the UK. This soon extended to all over Europe and we discovered that morning that our flight was canceled. The earliest we could book a return flight to England was on Thursday...NEXT Thursday.

We had already been here about 5 days and now we are all on day 7 of our extended time here. Alright alright I know all of you are thinking...WHAT? More days in Greece that sounds ideal! Well even though it may sound ideal to a certain extent, we will be missing class and it is more money to stay. Luckily we were able to stay in the same hostel we were staying in before and we know the area well enough. Food is relatively cheap which makes staying a bit more bearable. It is the uncertainty of the situation that makes it not as enjoyable as it could be, especially when there are many thoughts of being stuck here longer looming overhead.

If our flight on Thursday is canceled, we will have to look into either flights elsewhere to get closer to England or boats/trains. Traveling to England by ferries/boats/trains will take anywhere from 2-4 days, depending on how booked up things will be and I imagine they will be. Flights will be difficult because of what airports are available to us being in Greece and the airline we used, if there are any airports open. It is a tough call to make, especially since may of us are running out of funds and we are on our second to last week of classes. So although it may seem very ideal to be stuck in Greece, it is better than most places to get stuck, but it is still not ideal.

On a different note, I am here with 4 other fellow friends and classmates which make my time here more bearable. We have at least been able to find some hilarity in this situation. Last night we went out for McDonalds cause we were in need of some comfort food. We took the food to a nearby park and proceeded to eat and enjoy it. A Grecian elderly woman came up and started talking to us in Greek. Of course, none of us speak a word of Greek but apparently she thought I could understand her. What we could make out of the entire conversation is either that she thought we were Bulgarian or that there were Bulgarians stealing purses and asking for money. That just added to the fact that we are stuck here and gave us all a good laugh.

Today we decided to get out of the hostel for the day and go to the beach. It only costs 2 euros to get there and back, so it was something we all could afford. The beaches here aren't naturally sandy, but naturally rocky. There is some artificial sand that is pumped in, but when you go into the water it is all rocks. Four of us decided to go swimming in the Aegean today and despite it being a bit chilly, it was quite nice. I even ended up with some battlescars from the rocks!

The best part of our day though happened at dinner. We all decided to get some pizza to make for dinner since it is a cheap meal. Unfortunately, we never checked to make sure our hostel had an oven in their kitchen. We got back to the hostel to discover that there was no oven and no microwave. Soo we decided to make them over the stove in a pan and they ended up burning completely on the bottom and only slightly cooking on the top. A delicious meal indeed!

At this point, I am taking it one step at a time and trying to keep positive. I have freak outs a few times every day when I think about this situation and how long I might be here. I just know that other people have it worse off than me and I have to remember it when I am feeling low. I think after this whole ordeal I am done with traveling for a LONG time.

Spring in Spain Part Two: Schmiemann Invasion!

After spending a few wonderful and relaxing days with Matthew, we were joined by his family. It had been about 7 months or so since his family had seen him, so I was glad that I could share in the reunion.

(The Schmiemann family minus Mr. Schmiemann, who was there too)

We stayed at this resort on the outside of Malaga, only a taxi, bus and train ride away! On Palm Sunday we all decided to take the lovely almost two hour excursion into the city. Luckily for them, since it was Palm Sunday, there were many holy week processionals going on. Basically every where we walked we ran into one.
(Don't worry, these are not KKK members, but part of a Spanish religious fraternity)



After the processionals, Matthew took us to the Alcazaba, a centuries old Muslim palace built on top of Roman ruins. It was absolutely beautiful and you can see all over the city of Malaga.





After exploring Malaga for most of the day, we decided to get them churros, a Spanish favorite dessert. Churros are basically fried dough with a cup of chocolate that you dip them into. What can be better than that? This soon became a Schmiemann family favorite and was requested almost every day.
(Spanish-style churros)

On Tuesday morning I was supposed to leave Malaga to go back to Norwich, but after only two days with his family, I decided to stay a bit longer because of how much fun I was having. After changing my flight, I now was able to stay until Thursday afternoon and enjoy more time with this wonderful family.

Tuesday we went to the town of Mijas, right outside of Malaga. This city was built into the mountain side, so we had a great view of Malaga and the Costa del Sol. The town, although very pretty, was very touristy, so that takes away from the beauty of the town. Once again we enjoyed some churros after a disappointing lunch. One of my favorite parts of our days in Spain though was actually coming back to the resort at night. Just like the Schells, the Schmiemanns love games, so we would spend the night playing card games and cracking jokes and doing some more eating. I couldn't think of a better way to end my days.




On Wednesday we went back to Malaga to have lunch with Matthew's host mother. Of course Matthew's real mother was eager to meet his host mother. Dora, Matthew's host mom, has always been so nice and gracious all the times I have stayed at her house, so she had nothing to worry about. Dora and her daughter Dori, made us all paella, a traditional Spanish dish that has rice, veggies, and oftentimes seafood or some kind of meat with an olive oil and saffron sauce. We had had paella the other night at a restaurant but Dora's paella was 10 times better than the restaurants. Dora only speaks Spanish so poor Matthew had to be the interpreter for all six of us the entire time. Her daughter Dori spoke a little bit of English so myself and Matthew's sisters, Kara and Hope, were successful in striking up a bit of a conversation. Overall though, everyone had a great time and despite the language barrier, we were all laughing.

That night we had to be back for a flamenco show at this excellent Italian restaurant that we had eaten at two nights before. Clearly it was that good or we would not be going back! The last time we were there I got the most delicious pumpkin ravioli, which sounds strange, but it was very good! After eating another great meal, we stayed to watch the flamenco show. I had never seen flamenco live, so it was incredible for me to watch since I love dancing. Flamenco is really only native to Andalusia (the region of Spain where Malaga is) but it is considered the dance of Spain. In Flamenco there are lots of heel stomps, clapping and castanets. At one part of it though, they decided to bring up members of the audience. Knowing how I usually get picked for these things and how much I love to dance, I was so hoping to get picked. But instead they pick Matthew to go up and dance. He won the crowd over though and I couldn't have been more proud (even though I wanted to be up there too!). Overall, it was a great day.



On my final day in Spain, Matthew planned for us all to go to Gibraltar. Even though it is technically a part of Spain, it is owned by the British and so is considered a British territory. The interesting part of Gibraltar is that you can see parts of Africa and all along the Costa del Sol in Spain. It is also a huge rock basically where there are more roads inside tunnels in the rock than outside. Matthew chose for us to do the Tunnel Tour instead of the shopping one, so I was excited. On the way to the WWII Tunnels, we took a bus up these windy, narrow pathways. What we came across though, surprised me. There are apes native to Gibraltar and there was a place where we stopped to go see them. They are wild and not on a game preserve and are the only wild monkeys that can be found in Europe. After seeing the apes, we arrived at the WWII Tunnels. During WWII Winston Churchill had the army construct a massive set of tunnels into the mountain for people to live, as well as for an army base. The incredible thing is that most soldiers would work in the caves 6 days a week and then get one day off to go out into the town. They would only get about 10 minutes or so to go out of the cave per day. The water supply was also limited, so showers only happened about twice a week. They did have running water, beds, and an entire kitchen run on electricity. After that, we had some time to eat and then had to go back on the bus.

(That's Africa in the background!!!)

(one of the many apes!)



(Matthew and his sister, Kara, in the tunnels)

(the town of Gibraltar)

We got back later than expected, so I had to say some quick good-byes before I had to leave for the airport. Since it takes a good hour and a half to get to the airport from the resort, Matthew and I were pushing it close. This was one of the first times I had to run to the airport to get there on time. Luckily all was well and I made my flight. But what an incredible time I had in Spain with Matthew and his family. I came back to rainy, cold weather in England, so I am definitely missing the sunshine of Malaga.

Spring in Spain Part One: Reunited at Last!

After almost 3 months of being away from my boyfriend, I finally got to fly to Spain to see him! I cannot even begin to express how excited and relieved I was to see him. Unfortunately for him, spring break didn't start until three days after I got there, so he still had to go to class and work.



Since I had already been to Malaga (where he lives) in November, I was perfectly fine with just relaxing, going to class with him, and oh yeah, going to the beach!! The first day there was the most beautiful and warm day of the entire time I was in Spain, so we went to the beach. We both went into the water and I almost dunked my head! Now I can officially say I went swimming in the Mediterranean Ocean!



On one of the next days Matthew and I decided to take a long walk on the beach. We didn't realize how long of a walk we would actually take, but we ended up walking to the center of town, which is at least a 30+ minute bus ride! Along the walk we saw so much sea life that we were not expecting. We first came across these blue jelly fish that looked nothing like the jelly fish I have found in the Atlantic Ocean. Since we noticed that most of them were still moving we tried to save them, but they were sadly almost dead. We also found the biggest jelly fish I have ever seen in my life...it was at least 2-3 ft in diameter!
(weird blue jelly)

(2 foot jelly fish!)

Then we found some sort of fish that was barely alive which we tried to save. We managed to get it back into the ocean but it was belly up. And the last thing we found were barnacles. They were on boots, sticks, logs, anything they could attach to.

(a plethora of barnacles)

One of my favorite days with Matthew though was when we got to go behind-the-scenes for the Holy Week (or Semana Santa) in Spain. Basically Holy Week in Spain is filled with at least 7 or 8 processionals per day with these elaborate floats and music. These processionals are put on by the churches in the area and Spanish Fraternities (which are NOTHING like American-style fraternities). The traditional dress of the fraternity members is also startling because well, it is what the KKK modeled their costumes after. They are NOT affiliated with the KKK in the least. Matthew's one professor is part of one of these fraternities and so he allowed me to join the class in getting to see the floats up close. Of course, the entire tour was in Spanish, so my wonderful boyfriend had to translate it all for me. There is just nothing that can compare with these kind of events in America.

(Majority of the floats have a crying Mary) (this train was HUGE!!)

After we had the tour, we got to see one of the processionals going on. Since every thing is done really late in Spain (like eating dinner at 9 or 10 at night), the processional was at midnight! Can't imagine anyone having a parade in America at midnight without complaining.


Another favorite day of mine was the day that Matthew decided to take me to La Conception, the largest botanical gardens in Europe. This time we managed to get a tour in English and Spanish, so Matthew could take a break from translating. We saw so many different types of trees with a majority of the trees and plants that actually came from the Americas! I really wish I could remember more facts about the trees, but I completely forgot! It was just such a beautiful day out and being able to explore these huge gardens was so fun.







And the rest of my time in Spain will continue in Part Two with the arrival of Matthew's family!

Pierogies in England?

Alright so this post is a little past the date that I did this, but I still wanted to blog about it anyways.

Heaven wrapped in dough...(are you salivating yet?)

This little adventure all started when one of my friends here, Sarah, sent me a link to a recipe on pierogies. Now, if you don't know, I LOVE PIEROGIES. It is one of my favorite foods back at home and obviously they don't make/sell pierogies in England. So when my friend sent me that link, I was going to do whatever it took to make them. We shared the idea with our friend Chelsea, who is of Ukrainian descent and it is a holiday tradition to make them in her family. So instead, she managed to get her family's old recipe that feeds 50-60 people!

50-60 people?? Hmm...We had a decision to make. Either make all the pierogies and freeze them for a later time or...invite people over for a pierogy dinner! Apparently, pierogy-making days in her family are a 1-2 day event, but we decided to make it a 2-3 hour event. Recruiting some help, we decided to get pierogy-makin'!

A plate of pierogies with the famous recipe.

First we had to make the filling, which is basically mashed potatoes with cheese, onion powder (or whatever else you want in it). Then you let the potatoes after you mash them and cheese them up cool down. Whilst the potatoes are being cooled down, then you have to make the dough. Unfortunately, we did not have enough eggs to make the optimal amount of dough, since you are to keep making dough until the filling runs out, but it still worked.

Now in Chelsea's family and probably Ukrainian culture, probably why the pierogies took so long is that the woman of the family would sit around and talk and gossip whilst making them. Trying to keep in historically accurateness, we tried to gossip while making the pierogies, but that was of course a fail.

Back to the pierogies. So after you make the dough, you cut out circles, fill them with the cheesy potato filling and pinch the sides so that they stay closed. Then you put about 10 in at a time into a pot of boiling water and after some time, you fry them on the stove. We decided to fry some with bacon and onions and that was a good choice.

The pierogy-makin' station!

In the end, we made around 40-5o pierogies, so we were pretty close to the end result. About 10 or so people showed up to the event and we ate the pierogies until they were all gone. And of course, we had my favorite pierogy topping...sour cream!!

The group digging into pierogies!

My mouth was salivating writing this blog post...I wish they had pierogies here! Not to worry though, because my friend and I decided we are going to make them over Spring/Easter break. It is an Easter tradition in her family and since we are both going to be here over Easter, why not make them? I'll update you all on part 2 of pierogies in England!

A Stranger in Strangers’ Hall: What a mess!

Today, for the entirety of the three and a half hours I volunteered at Strangers' Hall, I organized craft cabinets. Why may you ask? For some odd reason, I thoroughly enjoy organizing (even though oftentimes my own room isn't so) and when they asked me if I wanted to do this task, I sprung to it. With a cold coming on though, perhaps sorting through pipe cleaners and bits of paper wasn't the best thing for me.

My boss briefly explained where the things were located and what she wanted done. Organizing some cabinets and writing lists of supplies seemed easy and mindless enough. Boy was I wrong. Since the museum is very much involved with children's activities, they have massive supplies of random objects. They had enough paper and pens to last them a few years and yet they had only one measly box of crayons and about 15 children's scissors. Clearly, nobody had sorted through their craft supplies in quite some time, so I set to work.

The supplies, activity guides and materials were all over the place with no sense of organization. I managed to make one cabinet only for supplies, one only for the activity sheets and the other for extra supplies such as pens, scissors, glue, etc. Even just that small task made a huge difference. Then I had to sort through everything...what a nightmare!

They tried to have separate bins for each activity with supplies in it, ready to go. Of course, that was not the case when I sorted through them. Many were filled with trash, lacking in supplies or instruction sheets and had no order to them at all. I tidied them all up and made a list of supplies that were needed. I even alphabetized the bins in the cabinet for easy reference. So maybe I'm a little "OCD."

I then moved on to make some order of the huge supply cabinet. Nothing was labeled or in any order. I've realized over time that most people really won't take the time to search through boxes or things to find something, unless it is labeled for their convenience. There were the usual supplies of paper, yarn, fabric and then the unusual supplies such as baby socks, nutmeg and floor tiles. After the cabinet was labeled and organized, I thought that my tasks were done, but then I turned around.

I noticed on the floor of the supply room that there were piles of random papers and objects that looked like they might have been for crafts. Guess what, I was right. Now I had a whole other pile of things to sort through that weren't in any bins. I found more activities for the activity bins, useless scraps of paper, and other random activities that might possibly be used in the future. Once again, I sorted and organized, found places for these objects and left a pile of miscellaneous items that I had no clue about for the curator. Whew!

What I thought was going to be a day of mindless work turned into a day of organizing genius. I had no idea (and I think the museum workers as well too) of the amount of craft items and activities the museum had in possession now that it was all organized and labeled. I can understand why things get like this in a place like a museum, especially after a busy holiday, but it is just incredible just how unorganized it can get. At least I'll be leaving in a few months so I won't have to be there to organize it when it gets cluttered up again. I think I would cry if I saw it in disrepair again so soon.

Hours logged: 3 1/2
Total hours: 15 (technically I'm done, but I'm going to keep volunteering there anyways)

A Stranger in Strangers’ Hall: When a reproduction just isn’t good enough

Last Friday I went to Strangers’ Hall with the notion that I was going to be helping out with some children’s project or making another “robot” out of a box. Sadly, today was completely normal. After learning about what I was supposed to help out with today, my boss and I got on the subject of my research paper. This enthused her so much that I ended up doing research for my project instead (which I am not complaining about in the least!).

For the couple hours I was there we bonded over “museum talk” or the pains and joys of being involved with museums. In a mere two hours or so that I was at Strangers’ Hall, I learned its life story and why it is the way it is today. She brought out dozens of newspaper articles and photo albums of the museum in its heyday, about 30 years ago. Seeing the museum as it is today compared to what it was back then I couldn’t believe the difference.

What I noticed the most through my exploration of Strangers’ Hall’s history was the massive collection the museum houses. But what I noticed even more was that about 1/18 of that is on display today. I had no idea about the amount of “stuff” the museum owned. I learned that the Hall owns about 25,000 objects and artifacts, but the majority of them are stored away. Even the objects strewn about the museum today are reproductions. With reproductions it allows a museum to become “more accessible” to the public because it makes them feel like there are less barriers around and that they can touch “historical” objects.

This got me to thinking about what is better, accessibility to museums (through reproductions) or having more of the “real stuff” on display. I briefly discussed this with my boss, who told me a story about the National Trust in England. The National Trust basically protects, preserves and funds sites all around England. What the National Trust is supposedly doing now is working with certain museums to “bring down the ropes” or the barriers behind authentic items to make objects and museums more accessible and have the “real stuff”.

Although that may sound like a great idea, I happen to disagree with the National Trust. In my years of working in museums, I have learned all to well that it is the adults you have to worry about more than the kids when it comes to handling objects. I’ve witnessed adults open closet doors, pick up priceless artifacts, try to go past “No Admittance” areas and even touch my personal objects. Sure there are also plenty of children that can be as bad and be reckless, but I believe adults are just as bad, or even worse.

Despite those qualms, I am a fan of reproductions and authentic items and I think a museum needs a balance of both. I love reproductions because people can actually handle historical objects and understand more the lifestyle and people of the past. And I also love authentic artifacts because people do come to museums to “see the real thing” and there is so much more meaning in seeing a real, historic object compared to a reproduction of the same thing. My question to any of you reading this entry is, what do you think?

Hours logged: 2 1/2
Total hours: 12 1/2