Valpo Voyager

Student Stories from Around the World

Tag: Summer

Life in Greece

Author: Dezzarae Arce

Program: CISabroad Summer in Greece

Taken right underneath the Acropolis, where you can go to find your local foods, clothes, gadgets, and anything else you may need.

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The changing of the guard. You can see the guard’s motion, which is ritual.

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Views of the town in Delphi

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Typical Road Signs

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Overlooking the city of Nafplio

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Taken in Athens, Greece – a typical view from your home’s window

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Overlooking the city of Athens – Taken at the top of the Acropolis.

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The Athens Flea Market located in Monastiraki, where you can buy handmade things and antiques

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My First Taste of Travel

Author: Jennifer Kvasnicka

Program: CISabroad Summer in Scotland

I’m here! I was so worried about flying, security, customs, and all those sorts of things because I’ve never been out of America before, let alone flown by myself. I’ve also been managing my diabetes pretty tightly, but adjusting has been fine! The one thing I’ve told myself this trip is to be as open as possible and to try everything that I can.  This week, I hope I can give you a taste of what my week has been like!

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I got to campus, which is right on the edge of both Stirling and Bridge of Allan, and immediately was welcomed by the International Summer School Team. A few other girls I arrived with decided to roam campus and get a feel for where everything was.  After getting lost around the loch (lake) a few times, we found our way back to the accommodations where we met up for our welcoming reception. We heard the Scottish history of Stirling University, including the stories of Wallace and his battles of Stirling bridge. Even better, a piper came and performed for us in his traditional kilt! After this, I felt like diving right into everything that Scotland has to offer.

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Later that night, we went out to the city center of Stirling and explored. It was nice having no particular agenda or list of things to do. We went to Wetherspoons (The Crossed Peels) where I actually had HAGGIS, the national dish of Scotland! I also tried a hard cider that they had available for the cider festival. It was so different from America because Scots don’t have the same sense of space. They will stand as close as they want, and most anyone will start a conversation!

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After awhile, we decided to explore the nooks and crannies of Stirling, We headed up the hill to the Church of Holy Rude Cemetery and Stirling Castle. We saw some amazing sites from the hills. We kept walking to find Gowan Heritage Hill. It was very secluded, but well worth the walk up. On top was the beheading stone used for execution. And mind you, this was only the first day.

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The next few days consisted of orientation, campus tours, and getting some groceries from the local store. It was all a whirlwind experience because every day seems to go by so fast. Classes started Monday, which included my Witchcraft and Belief in Early Modern Scotland and British Pop Culture (Monsters and Vampires) on Tuesday. It was different from the US because classes are split between two sessions throughout the day. The courses are only about 12 students, but this gives us a change to get to know our professor better even though it is only a four week session.

Besides classes, we took an excursion to Edinburgh. My friends and I visited Camera Obscura, National Museum of Scotland, Palace of the Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh Castle, and so many other things! Edinburgh is much more fast-paced than what I’m used to in Chicago. It’s a hub of activity, and I loved every minute. I hope to explore the smaller towns around the uni (university) and get  more connected to the culture next week. As we say in Scotland, Slàinte!!  (Cheers!)

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-Jen

Grecian Monuments – Walking into the Past

Author: Dezzarae Arce

Program: CIS Summer in Greece

This is the Temple of Apollo taken in Delphi, Greece

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The first Olympic stadium

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The temple of the God of the Sea, Poseidon, in Cape Sounion

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The tomb of Agamemnon in Mycenae

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An ancient theater used by Greeks for musical and theatrical performances in Epidaurus. It is still in use today as it provides great sound quality. The acoustics are so great that if you drop a quarter in the middle of the stage, people in the very highest seating can hear it drop.

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The classic Acropolis in Athens, Greece

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The Library of Hadrian in Athens, Greece

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The Parliament located in Athens, where there is a change of the guard every hour on the dot

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Deciding on Greece

Dezzarae Intro

Author: Dezzarae Arce
Program: CIS Summer in Greece

 

Hi! My name is Dezzarae Arce, and I am currently a senior here at Valparaiso University studying mathematics and secondary education. Apart from academics, I am a a member of the University’s Women’s Cross Country team and a member of the Gamma Phi Beta Sorority. Being my senior year, everything is coming to a close, including the opportunity to study abroad. Thus, to fulfill my last humanities credit, I decided to study aboard. After I complete this credit, I will be gradating in August and becoming a high school mathematics teacher with the hopes in coaching high school girl’s cross country.

 

To fulfill my last credit, I decided to study abroad. In choosing my destination, I wanted to go to a place where no one really goes or thinks to go. I also wanted my experience to be a complete culture shock including the language. So right away I knocked out London, Italy, Spain, France, and Germany. I eliminated these countries right away because I speak English, Spanish, and French and because some of these countries tend to have similar customs to American costums. I wanted to be surround by an unknown language and a culture where I had to adjust. I wanted to become frustrated and learn new ways of living. Thus, I choose to study in Greece. This summer, I will be studying in Athens, Greece and will be exploring different parts of Greece including an island. During my time abroad I will be visiting Delphi, Nafplion, Cape Sounio and the Greek island Crete.

 

This will be an experience of a lifetime and I am beyond excited to start this new adventure.

The end of “Summer”

With the beginning of the “Deutsch Kompakt Kurs” this Monday came the end of my two-week summer vacation in Germany. After the hardest semester of my life this spring and an exhausting summer full of hard work and preparation for my year abroad, it was really nice to have a few weeks to myself to relax and settle in to my new “home” in Tübingen. Yes, indeed, my few short days of summer are over.

View from the Castle Park where we spent many of our "Summer" days.

The week began pretty slow, with some bureaucratic paperwork, a placement test, and a dinner for everyone in the course to get to know each other. Then on Wednesday at 9:00 AM sharp, we all hit the ground running at our first day of German Grammar bootcamp. The class Jake and I were placed into can be relatively difficult (in my opinion,) as well as slightly intimidating at times. One of our classmates is a Norwegian with a bachelors degree in German, who as you could imagine, speaks nearly flawlessly. Another one is a Swedish girl who grew up in Switzerland speaking German her whole life. Us Americans in the course are not quite there yet…

Rachel and I climbing the steps up to the castle!

Luckily, everyone in the course is extremely nice and friendly. The atmosphere is very comfortable, so nobody feels shy to speak up in class – we’re all of the understanding that as a bunch of foreigners here to learn German, we will all inherently make lots of mistakes. Sometimes it seems strange to speak German when the five of us Valpo students are together, or when we are with other Americans. It is much easier, however, to speak it with Koreans, Swedes, Belgians, Russians, and Brazilians, for example. (All you have to do is pretend they don’t speak English… Which they all do.) All in all, I’ve gotten to know a lot of very interesting people, and I’ve really learned a lot in the last week.

 

For this blog post, I’ve decided to do a “Top Ten” list of sorts, consisting of things I learned / found interesting / observed etc. this past week. Naturally, I learned a lot of new grammatical rules and conversational German phrases, but I’ll leave most of those out for the sake of not boring the non-German major blog readers. Many of the things listed below have something to do with the cultures represented in our course, as these are the people I’ve been talking to / getting to know over the last week!

 

1) Scandinavians (minus the Finns, i.e. Norwegians, Swedes, and the Danes) can all speak to each other and understand each other in their native languages. The three languages are pronounced very differently (almost as if they are dialects of the same language) but are still very similar. So similar, that the three nationalities have no problem communicating as long as they speak slow enough to “translate.” There’s also a really neat saying meaning, “Thanks for today,” that the Scandinavians say to each other at the end of the day that is also somewhat similar in each of the three languages.

 

2) Although Europeans in general are known for their ability to speak multiple languages, the Belgians and the Dutch are particularly well-known for their language abilities. For example, many Belgians can speak four languages (one Belgian girl in another class can speak six.) Because Belgium is such a small country, nearly everyone can speak both Flemish and French, regardless of whether they come from the French-speaking region, or the Flemish. They begin learning English at a very young age, and many then choose to learn German and perhaps even more languages. This fascinates me more and more each day as I attempt to learn my second language. Learning German has given me a very strong appreciation of multi-lingual people, because learning a language can feel very deceivingly and unbelievably difficult.

 

3) In German, there are two ways to say “you:” “Sie,” when you want to be formal, and “Du” when you are speaking casually with a family member, friend, or someone who has given you permission to speak to them on a more personal level. The distinction between “Sie” and “Du” is often times a very difficult one that hinges on multiple factors. As we were explained, using “Du” with someone is like a gift: if you are speaking to a superior, coworkers, someone older than you, or those with authority, you should always begin with “Sie.” If and when they tell you it is okay to use “Du,” (which depending on the situation, can be a big deal) it is impolite and rude to continue saying “Sie,” against their wishes. When speaking to kids, family members or other students you always use “Du,” but here are some of the more interesting distinctions we learned between the two forms:

  • When hiking in the mountains, you always greet passersby with “Sie,” unless you are higher in elevation than 1500 meters above sea level, in which case you always use “Du.”
  • Certain political parties in Germany have adopted either one or the other forms of you. For example, the more conservative CDU and FDP parties use Sie, and the more liberal Greens, SPD, and the “Lefts” use du. This applies not only to politicians and those who work for the political parties, but sometimes to the voters as well. An example directly from our teacher: If you typically vote Green, (as the majority of people actually do in this region of Germany,) and you know somebody to be CDU, you probably wouldn’t want to introduce yourself immediately as a Green voter by using “Du.”

 

4) (This one isn’t something I “learned,” per se, more something I’ve observed and find interesting.) Many countries, such as Brazil, are much more lax about citizenship than the United States, and allow for multiple citizenships and passports. One girl in our class is from Brazil, for example, and because her great-grandmother came from Italy, she is eligible for an Italian passport – which she is currently waiting to receive by mail. Just Imagine: how many people would love to have dual citizenship in the United States because their great-grandparents were born in another country? I might be wrong, but I don’t think it’s even possible anymore to have dual citizenship if your parents are from another country, much less grandparents or great-grandparents.

 

5) The alcohol laws across Europe are interesting, and quite varied. In Germany, it is apparently no problem to walk around in public with alcohol, as long as you aren’t belligerently drunk and/or causing problems. Last night, for example, a big group of us from Deutsch Kompakt went out for dinner. Afterwards, we found a bar where they were selling “Cocktails to Go,” for €5. We each bought one, and drank them as we sat on the steps near the marketplace for nearly three hours. In the United States, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find “Cocktails to Go,” (especially with our culture being dependent on cars and driving) or municipalities that would allow the free roaming around in public with Piña Coladas. I’ve always found it crazy that in Indiana, it is illegal to buy alcohol on Sundays. Surprisingly, in Norway, a country known to be quite liberal in comparison to the United States, you cannot buy alcohol not only on Sundays, but also after 8:00 PM on weekdays or after 6:00 PM on Saturdays.

 

6) Wifi is practically impossible to find here in Germany. This, and the fact that credit cards are often not accepted in the country home to Europe’s banking capital, are somewhat surprising to me. Germany is an extremely modernized country. In many ways, for example, its solid infrastructure and economy, I would say it is even more modernized than the United States. (Now gasp, and call me un-American. Just kidding. Kind of.) Still, it has somehow managed to leave widespread Wifi and credit/debit card acceptance in the dust. Interestingly enough, it’s not just us Americans who think this. A girl from New Zealand whom we met couldn’t understand why credit and debit cards are not widely accepted here, and the two Belgians in our class tried to take their laptops to Burger King in an unsuccessful search for Wifi.

 

7) Bureaucracy like you’ve never seen. The Germans love bureaucracy. The more complicated, the more forms, photos, permissions, numbers, passwords, and long lines, the better. Simple things like “Matriculating” that take 5 seconds in the United States can take much longer here. We were commiserating with the Belgians and Scandinavians about this as we stood in line with our envelope full of paperwork (complete with biometric photo) to register as official students – complete with internet access that will arrive in no less than one week. In other parts of Europe as well as at home, this is all done online. We login to DataVU, and click, “YES, I WILL be returning in Fall 2011” or, “NO, I will NOT be returning in Fall 2011.” Then we click to confirm our registration in all of our classes. Then we click “Submit.” Done. The Germans, however, love their paperwork and they love their personal contact. I guess I can see the benefit of personal contact in a world that seems to be losing its ability to interact with others. I just wish it would be a little less complicated and time-consuming. Oh, and did I mention that there is an “Exmatriculation” process that has to be completed when we leave next July?

 

8) English is truly the international language. It is so interesting to me that every time the Czech, Belgian, or Swedish students talk to each other, it is in a language that nobody else understands. When we Americans talk amongst ourselves in English, it’s not hard to see the heads turning and subtly leaning in to listen in on our conversation that everyone else can also understand. It fascinates me greatly that when the Italians have trouble speaking in German to the Danes, for example, or the Norwegians to the Czechs, they automatically switch to English to explain themselves. The Italians typically don’t learn Danish, just as the Danish typically don’t learn Italian, the Norwegians typically don’t learn Czech and the Czechs typically don’t learn Norwegian. They’re all here to learn German, a third or fourth language that is not their own, but when that fails they turn to their second or third foreign language: English. This presents a difficult challenge for Americans learning other languages (I mentioned this in my last entry,) but I also think it’s incredibly motivating to try hard to keep up with them!

 

Tomorrow we leave for our six-day-long class trip to Blaubeuren, a small town in the mountains where the University of Tübingen owns a house. From what we can tell it sounds like it will be a retreat or sorts, kind of a like a one-week German “camp,” complete with hikes to a waterfall. I don’t know much else, but I do know that I’ll be without internet until Friday. I’ll post an entry about the week upon my return!

 

Bis dann!

 

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