Studying abroad places

Wolfie3:

Barcelona and Prague were clearly 2 of the best options in Europe in terms of nightlife and the amount of American kids. A lot of kids loved Florence, but bear in mind that it is a smaller city, so finding the cheap flights will be harder and sometimes the Florence kids needed to train to Rome for flights. I would personally avoid London. London is the boring option for people who want to avoid a language barrier and to a certain extent a culture barrier. Also, the weather is shite. I heard great things about Sevilla and Edinburgh as well. Sounds like a pretty personal decision as to Europe vs Asia. The kids I know who went to Asia/Australia had a great time. It definitely takes more of a go-getter attitude for going to places where they don't speak much English, but the culture/language shock is half the fun and you get what you put into things.

Yeah. The first time I decided to study abroad, it was to take classes for a Spanish major. I was looking at all Spanish speaking countries and eventually chose Spain and the UVA program. One of the main reasons I chose Valencia over Barcelona or Madrid was the absence of tourists and Americans. Valencia is the third biggest city in Spain and on the coast, so I figured if I needed to learn Spanish, it would be a great immersion program.

It was pretty awesome. I was there for Spring and Summer I (6 months) and it was probably 60-70% chicks in the program. I actually got in an relationship the last month of the program with a UVA chick that carried on long distance in the US, but I don't like long distance, so I had to end it.

I traveled a lot in Spain (Madrid, Sevilla, Barcelona, Zaragoza, Bilbao, Mundaka, Olviedo, Santiago de Compostela, Toledo, Calpe, Alicante, and a few others in Spain). I took my red Trek mountain bike to Spain and rode it through the rio to class everyday. I rode that bike to Calpe and Alicante (120mi one way) on the beach as well as to Peniscola (the girls loved the name of that city - they had a day trip to there).

Spain is a great spot to travel in Europe and the Valencia airport was pretty good. I went on Ryan air a lot and basically traveled by price on the weekends at times. I'd get tickets roundtrip for ten euros at the time. I went to Portigual (Lisbon, Ericeira). Had to check the waves in Ericeira - they sucked when I was there. I went to the Canary islands with four chicks one weekend. Of course if its 70% chicks, you're traveling with all chicks. I think I realized that trip that 4 chicks on a trip is too many. The limit is probably three chicks to one guy.

Every morning they would do their nails and stuff like that when I was ready to go to the beach. They wanted to go shopping, it was lame. One chick was really cool though and she made fun of them doing nails in the morning (and then did nails in the morning to be part of the group). I met this cute spanish 19 year old tattoo artist that trip who refused to wear bras, had pretty big boobs, and wore wife beaters with red hair. We hung out for a few days. I needed some 1:1 chick time vs 4:1.

I finally did find some surf on trip to France. I took a road trip with two of my spanish friends from the city. One dude was a photographer for surf magazines. So we went to Hossegor, France in his VW van and camped out there for a week. Waves were a lot of fun. 6-8 feet, large enough but clean, beach break, boardshorts.

In that program, I also went to Italy, England, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, and Greece. I traveled to Italy with two chicks and they wanted to stay in Italy, but for days I was telling them that I was going to Greece. We had kind of an intimate moment in Cinque Terre, but then I had too much Grappa and passed out. We went to Lucca, Pisa, Florence, and then Venice. I told them I was leaving them after dinner and they kept wanting me to stay or something. It was ridiculous. Then they started playing around with it, but I think were still kind of serious. I was like ok, I'm leaving, hugs, then took a train to Brindisi and a boat to Corfu, Greece. The boat (yacht) was only like 40 euros.

In Greece, I stayed at this hostel called the Pink Palace. That was a crazy crazy time. What the hell is the Pink Palace?? haha. There were tons of hot chicks here and the first night they had so much cheap redbull vodka and ouzo that I thought for a second that the middle of the dancefloor was a urinal, so I guess I started to get ready to piss, but the bouncers threw me out and I passed out. I think I had 30 drinks that night and 20 redbull vodkas. I should have died, really.

They had 4 wheel rentals there so I got one and started cruising around the island of Corfu going pretty fast. I was on roads, beaches, everything. It was pretty fun. I flipped it on a beach and almost broke my neck, then it started rolling towards the ocean and I stopped it. Phew. There were two other people I met up with on 4 wheelers on the beach that saw it, they were like holllyyyyyyyyyy ... partly because when I almost broke my neck, the ATV rolled over me, didn't hit me that bad and landed upright. I was basically going real fast on packed sand and fishtailing. So I'd haul ass and then turn a bit. But, this time when I turned I hit this spot of loose sand that the front tire dug into and just threw me. I went to Olympia, Corinth, and Athens after that, then flew to Rome and back to Spain.

I wanted to learn the top three languages known by native speakers and was working on a Fulbright application to China in undergrad, so decided to go to Beijing the next year.

It was different studying abroad in Asia. I feel the 'party party party' of the Mediterranean beaches was definitely absent. But, there was much richness in culture and the like. It was a lot for me to take in moving to Beijing at that age.

I had a partial scholarship to Spain, but got fully comped to Beijing. Full airfare, tuition, food, covered by my undergrad. Everything but the beer. I wasn't even really planning on drinking or partying that much in Beijing, but then I didn't pass the admissions test for the level of Chinese I was going for, which was BS. I had done 1:1 classes for the past year in the US and some of the material that we covered was just a bit different than the test. I think the program was more focused on traditional characters than I was used to.

But, I was there. So I'm in Beijing taking classes that were pretty easy for me, the grades don't even transfer to my undergrad (it was pass/fail). I mean what should I do?

Partyyyyy

Man, I went out nearly every damn night. I think one day I was sitting in class and my stomach just burned of acid. My friend went out the last 5 nights or so with me and he was feeling the same way (guy was hilarious stoner from Cali who swam to get into an Ivy). I think I had gone out for 17 days in a row or something. One morning I went out so late to the clubs (usually MIX or VIX) that I guess I was crossing the library lawn back to my apartment and decided to take a nap. This is Peking University (the "Harvard" of China). Some white dude passed out at 10am on the lawn with a group of asians around him.

I woke up and a bunch of people were staring at me. I woke up, brushed off, was kind of like wtf, couldn't believe it was 10am and had conversation class at 11am. I ushered my way out of the circle-of-disbelief and went back to my apartment. How long were those people standing there - don't they have class? I mean really.

I was feeling good that day. Maybe I had a good sleep on the lawn. I decided to spice things up a little bit in conversation class that day.

Conversation class was basically talking to 2 different teachers for 10 min or so. You talk for 10 min, then you sit and wait and stuff, then you talk for another 10 min. Something like that. They assess your knowledge of the vocabulary covered in the week. If you use words you just learned they get all happy and stuff.

I was thinking f- all that today. Our teachers were all women. She started the quiz/convo. She was like "How are you doing today?", "What are your plans for today?".

I was like "I'm going to the club." "What time do you want to go?". She played into it like normal convo class, then I was like "We are going to Propaganda tonight", "You look pretty", "You should go" Then she bought into it. She was all like "really?" (zhen de ma?). I'm like .. "really" (zhen de).

I did the same thing with my other conversation teacher and convinced all the teachers to hit up this small club near the school that night (Propaganda). Most of the students didn't usually go out that night of the week (it was like a Wednesday). Most of the students came out for this. Hahaha that night was amazing.

Yeah, Asia was fun. But, it did seem a bit atypical for partying and stuff. There are lots of places to have fun and go out, just like any big city.

There was another Ivy program in Beijing when I was there from Princeton. We ran into some of those kids once. They said they never go out at all because the program is too hard or something, so I'd watch out for that one. Unless, you like being a book worm. But, part of the challenge for these program directors is to let the students have enough time to be exposed to the city and culture, while still maintaining relevant and applicable coursework. UVA was really good about that in Spain. If there was some event in the city, they would be light on homework and stuff. As we were just studying abroad temporarily - we might not see it again.

But, yeah, I'd recommend Europe in general. It is also a western style of life there. Even if you don't know the language, the way of life is similar.