So, first blog post and I feel like it's appropriate to start at the beginning of my travels alone. Now don't get me wrong, I know going on exchange in University isn't necessarily travelling, and I know that I kept it safe when making the move since I chose the closest state to Newfoundland.. but what can I say?! I was new to the game. What I can say about moving, though it was short and sweet, is that I got a taste of what's out there. I made all new friends, tried my hand (and my body..) in a new sport, traveled to new cities, and most of all, I figured out that leaving home wasn't as hard as I always thought it would be.
At the beginning of my third semester in University at Grenfell, I decided I wanted a change of scenery and packed two suitcases and crossed the border to go on exchange at the University of Maine at Farmington. Why did I choose Maine, you ask? Great question. I have no idea. At the time I'm pretty sure I was thinking: it's a lot like home. I had access to mountains for hiking, the weather would be similar, I could still go snowboarding and if it came down to it and I really hated my new home (yeah right..), I could return to Corner Brook fairly easily. Like I said before, I was new to the game.
Before getting to school, my new roommate Lydia had contacted me through email to introduce herself and to say how excited she was to meet me, especially since I was an "international student". Even still this makes me laugh because all of the other students in the international group were from far off lands (France, Argentina, China) and then there was me, a newfie. We sent a few messages back and forth before we met, and sure enough I knew I would have at least one friend at my new school. Lydia and I are very different from each other but I couldn't have asked for a better girl to share a tiny dorm room with. I showed up with my two suitcases full of clothes, and went on a shopping spree at Walmart in attempts to make my half of the room look like something you would see in the movies.
A couple days later, just before the start of the semester, my new pal showed up with a truck load of goodies to outfit our room including the essentials: mini fridge, microwave, and Keurig. She even put her bed up on new legs to turn it into the tall and cozy mountain of pillows and blankets where I would find her nestled for the majority of our time in the room (while she scrolled through Pinterest). She turned our little room into such a neat little spot it was even the room in Mallett Hall for mostly underage get together's of playing cards and drinking cheap beer. We stayed up late giggling and telling stories, talking about our seemingly endless list of boy troubles, and eating microwave KD and popcorn. She was the ultimate roommate, Thanks Lydia!
I got excited, I felt like moving into my room should be the first thing I talked about, then of course the Lydia spiel happened, my bad. I'll get better at this, promise.
Back to being an international student who wasn't really an international student! I remember meeting the big crew of foreign students and getting a tour of the campus we would call home for the next few months. We got to UMF a few days before all of the other *regular* students so that we would have time to settle in before the rush. Lucky for us, there were a few students on what I like to call The International Student Welcome Committee who were absolute legends and took us to places the campus tour didn't mention, i.e. The Sandy. This is when I met Sam. SAM. I love Sam.
Without this amazing woman, my experience would have been lackluster, I'm sure of it. She welcomed me to join her sport team, her friend group, and her home in nearby Yarmouth, Maine. We went on countless (slightly drunken) adventures, weekend trips with the rugby team, and she took Doug and I in for American Thanksgiving and the beginning of Christmas vacation. Her family is the most lovely and I'm sure they will be talked about much more when I talk about more recent trips to Maine!
School was an adjustment, as I took a wide array of courses; American Sign Language, French, Business, and .. wow. I actually cant even remember the fourth because the French and business were so hard hahah. School in Maine was hard because unlike Grenfell, you actually had to go to class. Like it was part of your grade. So strange. This was hard for me because I'm stubborn and I thought that I should be able to do as I pleased, especially because my course marks were being transferred back to my home campus anyways. But I sucked it up, and I got used to it. First lesson in culture change.
I'm glad that one was easy because they've gotten a lot more complicated in recent travel excursions.
Those are for another post!
Here's to the first one, and my attempt to keep it coherent!
--Sasha