For a bit of Nostalgia –Katoomba to Mittagong Hike on Youtube
Latest
Oz Students Abroad moving to a new stage…
If you’ve come to this page, you might be looking for more information about the Bringing the Learning Home project or inspiration from our students on adding reflection to a study abroad or international exchange program. We’ve stopped adding new posts to Oz Students Abroad for the time being. Jan, Tonia and Greg have gone back to their day jobs, and we’re not enrolling more students right now.
That said, the curriculum that we’ve developed is now available. As I write this, we’re finalizing design on ten curriculum modules to supplement study abroad, including teacher’s manuals, resources for students, slideshows, video examples of the workshops being run, and other resources. All of that material is available, free to download and adapt to your uses through a Creative Commons license, at the Bringing the Learning Home project website. Just click on the Learning and Teaching Resources to find the whole list of what’s available.
Good luck with your international exchange or study abroad, or with helping to administer study abroad programs! We’ve had a great time doing this project and hope that you find it useful.
Greg, Tonia and Jan
Two weeks of German
10 days later it was time to leave the mountains. My bag was full of delicious jam, pickles and bread that I had helped make. I left on Sunday night, with a lift through carpooling.co.uk. A man called Viktor was driving from Villach to Bratislava, and I managed to get a lift to Vienna for only 10 Euros! (the train was 50 Euros). I was feeling pretty tired, as I had had a late night and a few drinks the night before. I was looking forward to listening to my music, staring out the window and perhaps having a little nap. Not if Viktor had anything to do about it. Viktor was a very inquisitive man, he could speak 7 languages and was thirsty for knowledge. He made it his mission to get out all the information I had on Australia. This involved 1000’s of questions ranging from what were some famous Australian icons/celebrities/brands/foods; the metric system; the Australian dollar; house prices; Australians’ average annual income; the distance between capital cities; the population and demographics; the weather… and the list continues. I had to make up a few things, but I’m sure he checked everything I said when he got home anyway. He had little interest for the 3 other Austrian passengers sitting squashed up in the back of the car. I guess there was probably nothing about Austria that he didn’t already know.
A small kite festival I stumbled upon on a Sunday walk
I got back to my miniature flat in the student residence where I was staying. The hospital-like interior and grey atmosphere didn’t bother me at all, I was just happy to be away from the endless Australia-related questions. However the contrast between the mountains and city was felt straight away, and I immediately missed the fresh air and happy little routine that I had had. The next day I started my 2 week intensive German class. I found out why it was called intensive. 4 hours of German a day, for 10 days. Intense.
A lot of the other students in the class where European, and had experience at learning other languages, at least by learning English and in some cases other languages too. It makes me angry that Australian schooling is so lax at teaching foreign languages. There is a certain arrogance at thinking that because English is a dominant language that no others are useful. I understand that because Australia is so far away from everywhere it is difficult for students to practice the languages that they are learning, but I still think that it is a skill that every brain should have to concur. And they say that it’s much easier for children to pick up new languages. I struggled initially in the German class, and felt that I was behind the students in picking up the language. I don’t know if it was because I didn’t have any experience at learning a language, or that I had other things on my mind at the time, or simply if languages were not my strong point. However, it did get a little easier. The class became a lot more enjoyable as everyone got to know each other. We even went out for drinks a few times, and would chat in the breaks about our troubles and successes in our new homes.
We learnt a lot in the two weeks. Everyday I could understand more and more German words written on advertisements; in the metro; on street signs; or spoken in the street. It was really useful learning the numbers, as I began to know how much my shopping cost at the vegetable market; which meant that I didn’t have to guess or always hand over way too money just to be on the safe side.
Me at the fruit and veggie market outside the metro station near my house. Much cheaper and fresher and friendlier than the supermarket.
During my first two weeks in Vienna I wasn’t so happy. After my busy and fun time in the mountains the realisation that I was all alone in a big foreign city hit me. I have traveled a lot in the past, but always with friends. This makes the difficulties that you come across not such big dilemmas, as they are shared with others and solved together. Now I was the one solely in charge of the map (not my strong point) and getting lost was a frequent occurrence. I was really missing my friends, family and lover back home, and was wondering why I had chosen to come and live on the other side of the world from them. Small things, like washing my clothes or getting my film developed, became difficult tasks. I knew it would get easier as it all became more familiar, but I still felt lost and frustrated a lot of the time.
-Betty
Airport and Mountains
Lets start at the beginning – the always enjoyable flight from Perth to Europe. The best part of the journey was probably wondering around Dubai Airport in a sleep-deprived haze taking photos. Mirrors, lights and green plastic-looking plants. Lets not forgot the compelling shopping experience that Dubai offers. All the alcohol, cigarettes and perfume a human could possibly want, in a clean and brightly lit environment. Nothing like a 12 hour plane ride to leave passengers brain-dead and in perfect consuming form. Or perhaps it’s the 10% discount that you can only find at an airport.
Anyway, 30 hours after leaving home I made it to Vienna. Naturally I got a little lost trying finding my flat. After a train, a few metros and a fair amount of walking I found it. Unfortunately the pin for a safe that I was instructed to use to retrieve my room key didn’t work. Even after 50 tries. On the 51st attempt I decided to accept the fact that I wasn’t getting into my room and I should probably find a hostel. I walked for about half hour in a direction where I thought I might find some internet and beer (I was pretty thirsty by now). I found a nice beer garden and managed to find a hostel easily enough. It was a very enjoyable beer. Got the last bed at the hostel and had a very satisfying slumber.
OFF TO THE MOUNTAINS
One day later I was sitting in a train heading to Villach in the Southern Austrian Alps. I had organised to work on a small organic farmstead there, through a program called helpX (www.helpx.net). HelpX is network where people can do various kinds of work for food and accommodation, and hopefully have an interesting cultural experience. I liked the sound of working on this farm in the mountains as it involved cooking with the mother, working in a large vegetable garden, and doing odd jobs around the house and on the farm. One of the sisters met me at the train station and drove me to the farm. We drove up and up and up the very narrow and windy mountain roads. The scenery and view became more and more beautiful. I was very impressed with how fast this 18 year old could drive on these roads. I tried not to think about what would happen if there was a car driving down equally as fast.
View from my window
The family was very lovely, and made me feel very comfortable and at home. The mother and father had 11 children, ranging from 18 – 30-something years old. Some of the children worked on the farm, some worked nearby, some were working on the farm for their holidays, and others lived elsewhere and often visited. So people where constantly coming and going. My German is very limited, as was their English. However we found it easy enough to communicate with the few words we knew, hand gestures, and a lot of guess work. There were two girls from New Zealand also working there, Jess and Darrienne. As they had been working there for a week they showed me a lot of what I had to do, and taught me the names of the family and friends and what they had learned about them.
Here is a list of some of the jobs that I did:
- Cleaning up after breakfast and lunch.
- Feeding the chickens (chickens are my favourite animal).
- Hanging out the washing.
- Collecting plums off the ground while Elizabeth (the mother) hit the tree with a stick like a madman. Tried not to get stung by the millions of wasps. Pitting, and slicing big pots of plums in the sunshine. Then turning them into jam.
- Making other preserves like pickles; and cutting and freezing herbs and vegetables for the winter.
- Helping make bread in the wooden bread oven.
- Cleaning the cellars, and emptying all the ash from the wood ovens.
- Collecting vegetables and weeding the veggie garden
- Helping with the potato harvest.
- Cooking lunch. I cooked lunch for everyone a few times, and other times I helped the mother. It was so fun being able to go to the veggie garden to pick all the things I needed – pumpkin, silver-beet, carrots, leeks, onion, zucchini, peas, raspberries, basil, parsley..
- Baking cakes. That was more for fun.
- Helping Heinz (the father) move wood from one part of the farm to another.
- Helping make silage bails. That involved using long wooden rakes to collect the cut grass from the steep slopes and around trees so a tractor could collect it. Then another tractor was used to compact it. Then another machine was used to wrap the bails in plastic. I got to ride in the tractor the whole time. And I even got to try and drive the tractor.
Grass Mounds for Silage Bails
Weeding in the Veggie Garden
The ‘work’ on the farm was very enjoyable and only occupied a few hours of my day. That left lots of time to go on mountain walks, lake swims, lying in the sun, reading.. We would often get taken along to random places, we would hop into a car and find out where we were going once we got there. Once it was a massive European annual Harley Davidson Festival. Random. Another time it was a journey through the mountains, across the boarder to Slovenia, to buy cheap capsicums. During the process we went in and out of 3 different cars. We were in Slovenia for about 20 minutes. Some nights we went out drinking with the boys to bars in nearby villages. Other nights we had bonfires and bbqs, and would sit around the fire drinking beers, waiting for the moon to pop up over the mountains. Life was sweet in the mountains.
Afritz am See for an afternoon swim
Afternoon Coffee
Me happy in the mountains
Heinz
– Betty
Coming Home
some memories from europe
My coming home is a bit different as I am not returning to Australia but after 4 months of traveling 3 of which were spent in Europe I am now returning to Victoria Canada to complete another semester of exchange. It feels really weird calling this home, but it really is. I managed to set up an apartment before I left which was really lucky to do, I am living with a friend near downtown its really nice and really cheap. It is surreal being back and I really miss all of my friends most of whom have returned back home after there exchange. Everything I see reminds me of them and all of the fun that we had. I have met up with the few people that are still here, my Canadian friends and international student which is great. I have met a few of the new “exchangers” but as I arrived at uni late, I have missed some of the orientations and activities.
UVic looks a lot different that I remember as well, for one, I have been here a week and have only seen blue skies and sunshine! Definitely not a complaint about that, I was worried it would be cold and raining as usual. But it is supposed to be the warmest week all summer, people are laying on the grass the fountain has been turned back on, its so nice. I am telling the other new exchanger to make the most of it because it wont last.
Classes started yesterday, I am so looking forward to it! i am doing French photography and American sign language.
I don’t really miss home now, I did at the start but my friend wrote me a letter every week and I was so busy, the busy traveling so i think i have been lucky to miss the home sickness. but I wouldn’t mind if they emailed me more!
Today my best friend Michelle is going to visit me for 2-3 weeks! i am so excited she will be the first person from home to visit 🙂 I have so many things planed and I know all of the good places to go now because this is my home. Tonight we are going to Olympic National Park and are going to hike to a hut on top of a mountain and sleep there 🙂 – I hope she is prepared….
My Europe trip was incredible, the highlights were the 2-3 weeks I spent working on a farm in Ardeche France, my french improved so much! and I loved it there, hitch hiking around France and Switzerland, hiking in the Swiss alps, rock climbing in the black forest Germany, my 2 weeks in the Netherlands with the awesome dutch guy I met in uvic and visiting all of my new European friends thanks to the exchange!
That’s about it for now, I will post pictures when I can,
Being home
I have been home for almost two months, and I wouldn’t say I am struggling to cope with the change, but it’s certainly a lot different to what I expected. I thought the experience of returning to Australia would leave me in despair, because of the final few incredibly intense days I spent in Los Angeles. The fourth of July was my last night in the city and rather than heading out, drinking and partying, I spent it watching fireworks outside my window with my best friend. It was the most magical moment of my life, it could have come straight from a scene in a Hollywood movie, but it happened to me and I am very grateful. While watching the fireworks show, I thought about home and how nothing could ever be this good again.
In reality, and in the present day I am very happy. I don’t think there was anything anti-climactic about going home at all. In fact, I knew that coming home was a huge part of exchange. It wasn’t a negative experience, as I thought it would be. I really wanted to see my family, I missed them a lot. There are only so many places in the world you can visit, without feeling the hollowness that comes with not having your family beside you.
I haven’t seen all my friends from home yet, but I regularly meet up with a few of my closest friends. I feel like I need that interaction, otherwise I will probably go crazy. It is difficult to stay motivated for uni, and since I am only there once a week, I’ve been looking for a job. I’m in the transition stage between university and the real world. I feel like this is one of those things that’s not as bad as it seems to be.
Anyway, I hope everyone who has recently come back from overseas is settling in and sorting out their new lives 🙂
Good luck!
U of A!
- Playing king of beers with the famous red cups!
Cacti everywhere!
Cactus in Tucson! They're everywhere!
Around America in 14 Days!
It’s been quite some time since I’ve updated on this blog. When I first got to America I would read over and over all of the things everyone had to say about it getting better and making friends and all that jazz. Now that I’ve finally made all of my friends, fit in with an amazing bunch of people and started to feel at home, I am beginning to see that I just couldn’t imagine leaving this place just yet… no matter how much I miss my family.
A word of warning to anyone contemplating going overseas for a year – think long and hard before leaving your family, especially if you’re like me and are really close to each and every one of the (eek!) 15 members of your family (small, I know).
The greatest thing about being in America… the US of A… is the ability to get anywhere you want to go… no matter how small of a town you live in (I live in a college-dedicated town), you are able to travel the country, relatively cheaply, at the drop of a hat. Let me explain…
Since I’ve been here – I arrived in January – I have been to the following places:
– Whitewater (my hometown in Wisconsin).
Whitewater, Wisconsin
Whitewater is a teeny tiny little town with no public transport and no craziness. I thought it would be an issue at first, but I’ve really come to love it and be proud to call it home. This place is the most school-spirited and community based town i have ever had the pleasure and blessing of stepping into. I can’t wait for it to snow again and I can’t wait to go back to Whitewater and start my second semester!
– Sterling, Illinois (my summer home, the house of Americans that adopted me for the year).
Sterling, IL
A little place in Illinois that I have the pleasure to call my home for the summer. This place is filled with a family that has no problems helping everyone and anyone that needs anything. The people that fill this house have welcomed me into their home for three months, not allowing me to give them any money, simply because their daughter is my best friend here. I am sad to leave this place after summer, but I am even sadder to leave these people at the end of my exchange. I couldn’t have asked for a better family to have had to honour of getting to know and love.
– Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin.
Milwaukee, WI
Milwaukee was my first adventure out of Whitewater. Another Australian that was attending my school joined me on our couch-surfing trip to Milwaukee where we were at last free to explore sights other than our tiny town. This opened the door for our travel bugs to itch us constantly until we got out and enjoyed this country. Milwaukee was beautiful and snow-packed and just great, a perfect first adventure in America.
– Chicago, Illinois.
Chicago, IL
Chicago is amazing, one of the greatest cities I was able to see. My first experience in Chicago was a concert for the band Cake with the family I’m staying with over the summer. We went to this outback steakhouse where they served things like a dessert named “Chocolate thunder from down under” which sounded quite peculiar to me!
– Hollywood, LA, California (my first trip – SPRING BREAK).
Hollywood, CA
Hollywood was a mind blowing experience, the most surreal one I’ve ever had. Walking the walk of fame and knowing all of the celebrities had been exactly where I’d been was a crazy feeling. We of course did all of the touristy stuff like Hollywood Blvd, The Sunset Strip, Universal Studios, Warner Brothers Lot and all of that. All of it was amazing, and I can’t wait to go back there – and maybe even take some of my family along.
– Las Vegas, Nevada.
Las Vegas, Nevada.
This is a really amazing amazing place. The lights, the people on the street, the WALKING, it’s all crazy in general but definitely an experience I’m glad I didn’t miss.
– New York City, NY.
NY, NY.
– Niagara Falls, CA.
Niagara Falls, CA.
Niagara Falls is my favourite place on earth. That is all.
– Toronto, CA.
Toronto, CA.
Toronto was our last stop before we went back to Milwaukee and Chicago – two places I’ve been multiple times. It was great coming back and settling back in. I love traveling, but I love my own bed.
So now, in two weeks I’m headed home. But not before I go to Disney. On Monday at 4.45pm I will be on a plane to (freakin’ hot) Florida for Disney World for 7 days. Staying on the property and having tons of fun. After the holiday it’s 3 days at home and then back onto a 27hr flight home. FUN. Even though I was meant to stay until the end of the year, I have no regrets and am excited to be seeing my family again.
So to all the people getting ready to jet off to a magical new place for 6 months or a year, make sure you have skype ready and your family willing to get on camera (my Mum isn’t willing and it made things veeerrrryyy difficult).
Some ‘Engrish’ I have noticed that I thought you all might find funny (especially if headed to the USA):
+ Next year may mean next school year. Every time one of my friends says next year she means next semester and I think she’s talking about 2012!
+ Sucker = Lollipop (they only say lollipop to young kids… they called it juvenile)
+ Peppers = Capsicum (and if you tell them you want capsicum their jaw will hit the ground in confusion)
+ You will notice that we shorten many words and add a ‘y’ or ‘ies’ to the end.
– Telly.
– Sunnies.
– Speccie.
– Breaky (Breakfast).
+ Truck = 4WD.
+ Truck = Ute.
These are just some to warn you guys. Be prepared to be looked at really strangely for majority of your visit. I’ve been here 8 months and it’s still happening. You WILL get sick of being the new shiny toy, I promise.
2 more weeks and I’m home. What a bittersweet ending to the journey I’ve been waiting for for years and years.
Welcome to ozstudentsabroad
Hi to all new students about to embark on exchange. Maybe you are already in transit, maybe you have arrived and semester has started (depending on your destination) or maybe you have a bit longer to wait. But for most of you, the count down is on…
Tonia, Greg and I want to invite you all to share your thoughts and photo reflections with us and with the others on this blog. We really do want to know how you are feeling as you embark on exchange. Nervous? exhilarated? confident? downright petrified? all/none of the above?
You will find there is a lot of good material embedded in the blog from other students who have already been through this process. Do a bit of searching – things like country-specific themes, ‘I wish I’d known’, culture shock – you will find lots of good tips and even more, the recollections of people who have already ‘been there, done that’. We hope this will be helpful and we also hope you will add to the collection of experiences.
And of course, don’t forget the photo competition – good cash prizes for all Bringing the Learning Home students from Murdoch, Wollongong and Macquarie – see the info on the blog home page
Good luck! we hope to hear from you soon and we look forward to sharing your journey.
Jan
Oz Students Abroad 
