Descansar

Hey everyone! 

Sorry for the long silence.
Today I'm back because I wanted to share some thoughts about a lovely experience which I just recently had: I spent my mid-winter break with my family in the amazingly gorgeous Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo, Mexico. And what better way to procrastinate on my Love in the Time of Cholera essay which I have to complete for school than talking about the vacation I so unwillingly came back from?! :P

So a quick note on the title of the post: The Spanish word descansar, meaning "to rest," but literally meaning something along the lines of "to de-tire." I've been studying Spanish for about three years now, and this has always been one of my favorite words in Spanish, because I believe that the idea that the literal meaning of descansar conveys is exactly how resting should be at its most beneficial. I thought of this word frequently in Isla Mujeres, as it's probably one of the best places I've ever been in which to descansar. :)
Isla Mujeres is a little 7-kilometer long island located a 15-minute ferry ride away from Cancun. My family had been there on vacation at this time last year while I was away in Alexandria, but this year we got to go all together! :)
On the 15th, my family and I all piled into an airport cab and headed off to a much needed, very warm week in Mexico.
It was pretty astonishing - after a three-hour direct flight from Detroit to Cancun and a brief ferry ride to the island itself, we were transported from the frigid, windswept winter wonderland of Michigan in mid-February to a Caribbean island in southern Mexico with nothing but crystalline water and cloudless cobalt skies as far as the eye could see.
I won't give a day-by-day description of the trip, as due to the rhythm of the trip and the pace of the days, the days quickly began to run together. Now, I can still, of course, remember the events of the trip in quite vivid detail; but I remember few of the specific dates on which they took place.
So I'll just mention some events quickly, and then just some activities I really enjoyed + cultural notes.
The first event I wanted to mention was that one day, in the middle of the trip, my parents, my sister, and I rented a golf cart and drove it all the way to the southern tip of the island (our hotel was on the northern tip, so it was a little ways for us), where there is a colonial house called the Hacienda Mundaca, and also what's left over of a temple to the Mayan goddess of fertility, Ixchel (the island used to be sacred to her for the Maya, and the abundant statues of Ixchel on the island is quite likely the reason that the island came to be called Isla Mujeres - "island of women"). We didn't see either of them from up close, but we did manage to get a good look on some pretty spectacular cliffs over the sea.
The other event I wanted to mention was ziplining. On that same golf cart trip to the southern tip of the island, we stopped at this place called Garrafon Park, and my sister and I rode on their zipline, which consisted of three different towers with four segments between them, two segments of which were entirely suspended over the sapphire-colored water.
At first I remember being very nervous and thinking of reconsidering, but I'm glad I never voiced that consideration, because it ended up being a ton of fun with a great view to boot. :)
I'm no crazy daredevil, but I always have a lot of fun with things like ziplining, I guess stemming from the fact that I've been fascinated with birds since I was a very little kid and I've always found stuff like that which tangibly stimulates flight quite enjoyable.

Aside from these cool experiences, it was very interesting culturally. I had never been anywhere in Latin America before, and after that first taste of it in Isla Mujeres, I can only say I'm intrigued and wish to continue exploring it. :) The culture and the pace of life reminded me a lot of both Egypt and Italy, southern Italy in particular. There definitely are lots of parallels between Latin, Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean cultures - lots of similarities in the attitudes, the ways of speaking and dealing with other people, the warmth and hospitality, and so on.
I also had a great time dabbling a little bit in the indigenous cultures of the area - we met a few Mayan speakers, most notably our friendly taxi driver on the way to the Cancun Airport when we were headed home, who taught us the word "koix (or at least I think that's how it's spelled,)" which is equivalent to "vamos," or "let's go."
This was great for me, being a person who's always exited to learn about local cultures anywhere I go. And I had been wondering quite a bit about Mayan culture in the weeks leading up to our vacation, since we were off to the Yucatan.
Aside from the one word I now know of Yucatec Maya thanks to our taxi driver, I also was able to practice my Spanish a lot - it surely was not an immersion experience, but I daresay I managed to understand and communicate very well using Spanish.

And I'll just wrap up my thoughts on my trip to Isla Mujeres by telling you all a story about the day that we arrived: So I make sure to listen to music in all the languages that I know and am interested in learning, and Spanish is no exception. One of my favorite Spanish songs is "Pasos de gigante" by the Mexican band Bacilos, which I was first introduced to by my 9th grade Spanish teacher, who had us listen to and translate it. I had just been listening to it on the flight to Cancun. And while we awaited our ferry to Isla Mujeres from Cancun's Puerto Juarez, it came on the radio. A bit of an odd coincidence, but it made me very happy for some reason.
Y ahora unas fotos (and now some pictures):

From the descent into Cancun. 

On the Ultramar ferry.

The town (it was siesta time).

The view from a window in the lobby.

Our first sunset on the island.

One of the world's hidden gems, Piscina del Rey. 

Our hotel

The cliffs of the southern coast.

There were tons of these big, grey iguanas on the cliffs there.

Seagulls roosting on what seemed to be an old dock. 

I'm so happy I got this one. :) 

On the way home.

And now I'm going to leave you guys with my favorite Spanish songs, which I listened to quite a bit on the trip. :)

                                     

^(This one is in Portuguese, not Spanish. But it's still lovely, still Latin American, and definitely perfect to listen to on the beach :))

Thanks as always for following me and keeping up with my adventures. :) 

Not much to report other than the trip to Isla Mujeres. Things are stressful but flowing forward at school, and I actually just took the ACT today (we don't have to talk about that...). I just returned from an emotional but very enjoyable gathering with my father's extended family in New Jersey prior to a service to honor my grandfather who, sadly, passed away in January at the age of 92. And my second choice for NSLI-Y is no longer Russian, but now Korean, mainly due to the fact that I have gained great interest in Korean language and culture in my participation in a club at my school known as Everyone's Free, which works to raise money and awareness to save North Korean refugee children. 

I still have no news from NSLI-Y, and I'm beginning to go crazy for that reason. I'm trying as much as I can to keep calm and go about my daily activities normally to keep a level head. :) 

That's all one can do, no?

Thanks again for reading, folks. 

I'll hopefully be back soon enough. 

안녕히 가세요 for now (practicing my new second choice :) )! 

Nico / 니코

(I'll leave you with one more video, my favorite Korean song :P)

Italy trip and midstay orientation reflections

Well, here I am again.

Today I just wanted to talk briefly about my trip to Italy over the holidays, as well as some thoughts I had after helping lead my local AFS chapter's midstay orientation this month.

So first of all, Italy! I left for Italy with my mom late in the evening after a cheery Christmas day of opening presents with my family, on a flight out of Detroit to Amsterdam Schiphol. The plane ride passed pretty uneventfully, and then after our not-too-long-and-not-too-short connection in Amsterdam, we were on to Bologna.
I spent almost the entirety of the second flight sleeping from jetlag, and then after a nauseatingly bumpy landing, we were greeted by my uncle, who came to pick us up and bring us back to my grandmother's home in my mom's little hometown of Viadana.

Being in Italy again was a little surprising at first. Because of finals and then Christmas, I hadn't really had a chance to think or prepare much for my trip. I remember thinking about it when I was out finishing up my Christmas shopping, and realizing "holy cow, I'm going to be on the other side of the world in a few days!!" But the shock didn't last long, and I got right back into the groove of things.
My Italian was still intact as ever, I'd say. I've spoken it at home with my mother my whole life, so I had no need to brush up. But I hadn't been to Italy since April 2012, before I left for Egypt, so at first my speaking was a little shaky due to simple lack of habit. But after a day, once my jetlag had more or less worn off, all was well again and I was speaking perfectly fluidly.
I spent the next week or so simply hanging out with my friends and family. We went over to my cousin's house and had lunches and dinners with my aunt and uncle and some close friends of theirs, I spent time with my grandmother and mother, and stuff like that. I also spent quite a bit of time hanging out with my friends - it was really nice, because I rekindled a lot of friendships with people that I hadn't spoken to a ton recently, which is always nice. :) And then I finished up my perfectly amazing 2013 with a New Year's Eve party at a new friend's house.
Then on the 2nd, I went with my mom and grandma for a quick, "touristic" excursion to Venice.
That was absolutely amazing. I had been to Venice once before, but I was only five at the time, so it was lovely to see it again and fully appreciate and remember it this time. We have some Venetian friends that we know because they lived on sabbatical years here in Ann Arbor, so it was especially helpful to have Venetians guide us around, show us really authentic places, and offer wonderfully insightful thoughts on the city - as well as their relative's flat for us to stay in. :)
It was simply so beautiful. Everywhere we looked we were surrounded by beauty and history, there's just no other way to describe it. It's so wonderfully unique, and I think it's definitely become one of my favorite places on Earth.
Not to mention, Regina came to Venice to meet up with us on the 3rd, along with her mother, Isabella. :D
That really made the entire trip for me.
It's only been almost a year since we've seen each other, and yet it feels like such a long time and no time. In any case, seeing her again was amazing. The way that we interacted and our relationship in general had not changed at all, and we picked up right from where we'd left off. :) It was weird in a good way to see her in Venice, when before that we'd only ever seen each other in Alexandria! :)
We took Regina and Isabella with us to the Ca' Rezzonico, a beautiful Baroque palace turned into a museum. That was lovely - we wandered around looking at the colorful, beautifully preserved artifacts, walls, and paintings that adorned the Ca', and chatting all the while about our lives, updates and recent events, thoughts about our Egyptian experiences in retrospect, and memories of our time together. :)
Afterwards, we did some wandering around, a bit of shopping, and then we said goodbye to Regina and Isabella for the night, and my mom, my Nonna (grandma) and I headed back to the flat where we were staying to get ready for dinner at a friend's house.
The next morning we started off with a visit to Piazza San Marco - a pretty obligatory destination for anyone visiting Venice.
Unfortunately, it was raining at the time. But that still didn't take much away from the sheer beauty of the Campanile (bell tower) and the basilica. It was simply breathtaking. And there's not much else that can be said about it; it was just amazing.
Afterwards, we grabbed a quick lunch, said goodbye to our Venetian friends that we had met up with the day before, and then I joined Regina and Isabella at a nearby cafe to spend some more time together before needing to go catch our train back "home" to Viadana.
We walked around a bit, caught a vaporetto (public transportation boat) to the train station, and took some selfies along the way. We even arrived at the station ahead of my family, who arrived several minutes later.
Then we sadly had to say goodbye - we exchanged invitations to visit each other in our home countries some time soon, and wished each other all the best in life, until we meet again.
Then we boarded the train, and after three hours and a connection at the train station in a small town near Venice called Monselice, and my uncle coming to pick us up at the train station in Mantova, we were back.
One thing I discovered was that Venice is actually not too far from Viadana at all - just a total of three hours by train, even with the connection, which I will certainly take advantage of during future visits to Italy.
The next day was my last full day in Italy, unfortunately, and I spent it hanging out at a good friend's house, watching a comedy movie, playing Just Dance, and talking about life and exchange, since my friend who was hosting the party is going to Australia later this year, and my other friend who was invited is coming to the States.
Then afterwards I went home, finished packing, wrote in my journal, and then had to endure a terribly early start to our journey home - our flight from Bologna to Amsterdam left at 6:30, so we had to get up at 3 to get to the airport on time, and of course I didn't fall asleep before we had to get up to leave. -.- I managed to get a bit of sleep on that flight, and then after our tight connection in Amsterdam and a fairly unremarkable 8 hour flight back to Detroit, we were home, arriving in the extreme cold and astronomical quantities of snow which were ravaging the Detroit area (and nearly the rest of northern North America) at that point in time.
I initially felt a bit upset coming back - we hadn't been able to stay very long, because we had to squeeze the visit between Christmas and the end of the break.
But fortunately, school then proceeded to get canceled for five consecutive days thanks to all the cold and snow - convenient for me, so I could get off of jetlag. xD Though I do wish I'd had the psychic ability to know that was going to happen before the fact - had we known, we could have stayed five extra days in Italy, come back Friday, and then we still would have had a weekend to recover. xD Oh well.
All in all, it was a fabulous trip. Quite a bit shorter than I would have liked it to be, but worth it nonetheless. I miss Italy now, but it's nice to be back in the States too, and I know I'll be back sometime in the not-so-distant future.
It's always interesting coming back from Italy. I was born and raised here in the United States, and so, understandably, this is probably the place where I feel most comfortable. It's the place I know the best, in which I can express myself the best, where my close friends and much of my family live. But there's also a big part of me which feels very Italian, and in some ways I feel more at home there than I do here. I wasn't born in Italy, but I've been visiting my mom's side of my family there for my entire life, and so Italy is part of who I am. The country and language have a very strong sentimental value for me. And coming back is always bittersweet. But it's also usually a very interesting point of self-reflecting upon my own identity.
Enough of my rambling, here are some photos:

From the descent into Bologna. 

The Borgo, the old part of Viadana (my mom's hometown).

View from the balcony of my Nonna (Grandma)'s apartment.

The piazza (town square) looking all Christmas-y.

Venice at night is breathtaking. 

Looks pretty rad in the daytime too.

Necessary photo of a gondola.

Me and my Nonna :) 

Ponte Rialto

Me and Regina on the vaporetto! :) I missed this girl like no other.

The frozen window of the plane from the descent into Detroit on the way back home. 

And now, some thoughts on my experience in retrospect:
On January 11, I volunteered with my local AFS chapter, assisting a few other volunteers in leading the midstay orientation for this year's hosted exchange students.
It went very well - it was my first time leading any event of the sort, and somewhat ironically so, as exactly a year ago that day I had been in Zamalek, Cairo, attending my own midstay orientation with Annika and Carson.
It went very well though - I had a good time, and I got to spend time with students that I'd already known, as well as get to know a few others a bit better. And I felt like I was genuinely able to provide effective and relevant advice from my own experience and from my knowledge of the way things work here on my own home turf.
Leading an orientation like this one exactly a year after I'd been the one being lead in one was eye-opening in a lot of ways. This, along with chatting with Regina in Venice about our experiences in retrospect, caused me to come to a few resolutions and conclusions that I thought would be relevant to share with you guys. So, without further ado, here they are.

1. I don't do too well with excessive amounts of time alone. I think I had known about this beforehand as well. But my experience in Egypt, especially the second semester specifically, highlighted it for me. When on exchange, no matter how involved or busy you get, you're going to have large amounts of free time, and I am and was fine with that. I definitely relish getting to spend time with myself and focus on myself. But one of the many things I learned about myself on exchange was that I am not an introverted person. I crave and enjoy human contact, and I often feel very low if cut off from it for too long. I'm not saying the second semester was a bore, far from it. But I definitely could have accomplished more. Part of that's on me, part of that was on the specific circumstances of where I was. And part of that is just because of how being an exchange student is in general.
2.  I really am proud of my roots and where I come from. OK, I had known this beforehand too. But again, my experience in Egypt really brought this out fully. I have wanted to travel the world since I was very young, and at times I've been so caught up with the foreign countries I want to see and experience that at times I've disregarded my own. I still do want to travel to a lot of places very badly. But now I truly recognize the worth and beauty of my own country and state, and I truly love them and am proud to come from them. This was true before, but again, it's been truly highlighted by my experience abroad. In fact, because of this, one of the places that is now highest on my list of places I'd like to go is the Upper Peninsula of Michigan - I've been to quite a few faraway places, but there's an entire half of the state I've been born and raised in for practically all my life that I've never even seen before, and I'd like to change that.
   Anyway, I'm now truly proud of the fact that I'm an American, a Michigander, and an Ann Arborite. Not that I wasn't before, but now I really have a balance - I have a case of insatiable wanderlust and wish to explore every corner of the globe and be a citizen of the world, but also a truly full love and recognition of the worth and beauty of the place I come from. And I now recognize that I have an intrinsic need to return to where I come from. I can't just abandon this place and never come back. I certainly plan on living elsewhere, hopefully multiple states and countries, in the future. But I will always return to visit the bustling, shimmering downtown, the sports games with the crazy maize-and-blue-clad U of M students, the gorgeous parks, the fun, upbeat music of Top of the Park, the magical, colorful, snowy Christmastime I missed so much in Egypt, the endless golden-red hues of autumn apple orchards and their apple cider + doughnuts, and so much more, in this incredible city which I am so proud and lucky to call my hometown (plus surroundings).
3. Arabic is a difficult language in more ways than one. I have explained the diglossic dynamics of Arabic before, and I won't get too into them again. But it honestly does really get in the way of learning Arabic. Because I learned from being immersed and speaking, the Arabic I know is almost exclusively spoken and colloquial. That is all very well and good; I am extremely glad that I learned as much as I did in the time I was in Egypt; I love Arabic and I know that all that I was able to learn of it was priceless. But what admittedly annoys me very much about it is that there's such an astronomical difference between the written language and the spoken languageS (emphasis on the plurality). Since I can't write down the dialectical Egyptian Arabic I've learned, I can't really practice it, and I'm in a situation where it would sadly be all too easy for me to forget what I learned. I keep checking in to make sure it's still there, and honestly I haven't forgotten much. But I easily could. I'll need to find a way to change this... But even aside from the whole diglossic situation, the sense of humor also complicates things quite a bit. Even towards the end of my exchange, when I could understand around 85% well and speak about 70% well, oftentimes the odd and intricate metaphors that lace colloquial interactions would negate any understanding I thought I had. And trying to be funny or sarcastic, even towards the end, while speaking Arabic induced an equal amount of hair-pulling (like the awkward time I tried to say "Was I right, or was I right?" in Arabic to be funny and had to spend over a half hour explaining what I'd meant to my host brother Loay because he had no clue what I was saying...) So there's that too. I love the Arabic language, but it's a toughie. Undeniably so.
4. Exchange can so easily be a tough experience. Before I left, I was half-hoping-half-expecting that mine would be one of those story-book exchange experiences, where my host country would become my second home, where I would effortlessly make hordes of life-long friends (both fellow exchangers from all over the world and locals), where I'd be invited to so many gatherings and events that I wouldn't know where to start, where I would be absolutely devastated to leave, where I would experience intense reverse culture shock and reverse homesickness for my host country after going back home, and so on. But now that I've lived my experience and met so many other exchangers, I now understand that those are truly more the exception rather than the rule. Sure, there are plenty of exchange students that have experiences like the ideal I've described. But most have problems of one kind or another. I know I did, in spite of my experience being quite successful overall. But there's just so much that can happen that I've now learned that these sorts of fairy-tale exchanges are the exception rather than the rule, and that should be kept in mind for anyone currently on exchange, or once was, or plans to be, when thinking about their own experience.
5. My experience taught me so much about politics and international relations. Understandably, politics are something that are very much discussed nowadays in Egypt. People converse, debate, and argue about them on a daily basis, and the variety of opinions on how the country should be run, as well as those on various social issues facing the country is staggering. I also learned a lot about my own political views. I won't get too deeply into it, but let's just say that even before I left, I knew I was pretty left-leaning politically...But that being in Egypt really confirmed that for me.
   But on the other hand, this is somewhat of a good thing - due to my increased awareness of my own political views and affiliations, I have inspired to become more politically active in order to better support social issues that I am passionate about, so that's nice. 
6. My feelings towards Egypt and my exchange there are many, and they are complicated. This is natural, I think. I have many very beautiful memories and things that I miss about my experience. But I also have many things that I'm glad to have left behind and don't miss at all. I've reconciled many of my negative memories, and I have come to fully appreciate both the good and the bad of my year in Egypt and how everything has come to form my experience and the way it's become a part of who I am. It's always evolving. 

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Hope you enjoyed this :)

Possibly coming back soon with a new post. We shall see. 

(I'm kind of enjoying blogging again, so I think I'm gonna keep it up. I may give this blog a little makeover to ensure its relevance outside of my year in Alexandria. We shall see. :3)

Bye for now, guys!
-Nico 

Holidays

This time last year, as I've made quite clear a number of times, was probably one of the hardest parts of my entire exchange (if you'd like to reminisce with me a bit, click here).

I was quite unexpectedly invited by my lovely German friend and fellow exchange student in Egypt Regina to attend a service at a French-speaking Jesuit church, secretively tucked away deep within Sidy Gaber, the neighborhood where our calligraphy teacher lived. That plus spending time with her afterwards, dancing down the streets toasting with little pastries and singing Christmas carols was absolutely amazing, bringing the holiday spirit I was so desperately missing to life in the streets of Alexandria. :)
The Christmas party that AFS organized for us the next day was fun as well, and even my host family surprised me with a little Christmas tree that they bought in secret. :) 

It was amazing and touching both how Regina and I were able to cheer each other up so easily and effectively by simply being who we were - two teenage westerners, homesick and pining for a holiday that we both so dearly love and were missing for the first time, and also how far out of their way so many Egyptians went to partake in a tradition unfamiliar to them just to make me feel better.

But overall, this time last year was undeniably one of the low points of my exchange. Christmas has always been my favorite holiday, and winter my favorite season, since I was a very small child, and so being away from my home and my family at Christmastime, in a country where it's not really celebrated no less, was extremely difficult. I pined for snow and all the fun things that come with it (snowball fights, skiing, skating, sledding, etc.); for freshly baked holiday cookies; for bright, colorful Christmas lights; for decorating the tree with my family and buying gifts to share with all the people I love most; for the voices of Ella Fitzgerald, Dean Martin, Andy Williams, Nat King Cole, and carols in general; for watching my favorite holiday movies like Elf, Love Actually, and The Polar Express; simply for the overall spirit of the season, this magical time I've loved since childhood. And as I missed all these things, painfully aware of their irrelevance in a country who's only sizable population that would celebrate Christmas in any capacity - the Coptic community - wouldn't be celebrating for another two weeks, I battled the most intense and crippling homesickness I've ever dealt with in my entire seventeen years of being alive. 

This past month, conversely, has been absolutely incredible for me. Given that I'm naturally much more conscious now of how much I appreciate Christmas and many other typical American celebrations, I've anticipated all my favorites with a special zeal this year. I attempted to brighten up the end of finals week by bringing some gingerbread cookies to school for my friends, went all out with gift-giving and decorating, and have been blasting Christmas music from my laptop since the day after Thanksgiving, soaking up all the holiday spirit I possibly can - with great success to boot, I must say. :) 

I hosted a lovely holiday party at my house on Sunday with a group of a couple close friends, and attended another one last night hosted by good friends of my family. And today, of course, I got to see the reactions of my family to the gifts that I got them, and they got to see mine to the ones they got me. :) Not to mention, tonight my mother and I leave for a ten-day trip to Italy to visit our family there!! :D I'm super exited, as I haven't been in Italy since April 2012 and can't wait to see my family and friends there again. And additionally,
 I WILL BE MEETING UP WITH REGINA WHILE I'M THERE!! :D

But back on the topic of holidays:

Because of my experience with missing Christmas so much last year in Egypt and enjoying it so thoroughly this year, I have noticed much more clearly how important holidays are to their respective cultures. They embody and celebrate the values, ideas, heritage, and traditions most dear to a culture or society, and show what it considers most important.
Furthermore, the traditions preserved in specific celebrations are quite fascinating across the boards. For example, Christmas and many other Christian holidays have preserved many interesting pagan traditions.  

I've also become much more interested because of this in exploring the holidays of the many multitudes of cultures I'm interested in, and so have resolved to research some of them more closely - the various ways Christmas is celebrated across the world, Diwali and Holi in India, Nowruz (Persian New Year) in Persia, Santa Lucia, Midsummer festivities in Scandinavia, Kalevala Day and Vappu in Finland, Þorrablót in Iceland, Seollal (Korean New Year) and Hangeullal (Hangul alphabet day) in Korea, so on and so forth (one book that I've been wanting to have a go at for a while now is "Around the World in 500 Festivals: The World's Most Spectacular Celebrations." :3)

From personal experience, one of the best memories I remember from my exchange in Egypt was celebrating Eid el-Adha with my host family. 

And one of the things that I was most disappointed about in my experience was that I never got to celebrate Ramadan, of course a very special time with a very distinctive atmosphere celebrated across the Muslim world - I arrived in Egypt a month after it ended in 2012, and left about three days before it began in 2013. 

One thing that actually comforted me quite a bit in the midst of my bout of intense homesickness at Christmastime in Egypt last year was that I had someone who understood where I was coming from quite well - my host brother Loay had spent a summer living and working in London a few years prior, and had struggled similarly to how I was feeling last December, because he had been gone in London for the entirety of Ramadan and had experienced similar homesickness. 

Needless to say, it was just comforting and reassuring to have someone around with whom missing a favorite holiday was a shared experience, who was able to relate well to how I was feeling, make me feel less alone, and was even motivated to partake in the tradition I was missing himself, just to make me feel better, in a very touching gesture of solidarity and compassion. 

That's about all I had in mind to share.

I hope you all enjoyed/were able to tolerate my little ramble about holidays and their cultural importance. 

Happy holidays to all, and Merry Christmas in particular to all celebrating today!

OK, I've gotta go catch my flight - over the Atlantic and through the Alps, to Grandmothers' house we go! 

(^Rain check on a possible post about the trip - as I'll be seeing Regina I suppose it's at least a bit relevant to my Egyptian experience, and since I've sort of rekindled this whole blogging thing, why not keep it up? ;) )

-Nico 

Some fascinating perspective. 

                                        ^One of my favorite wintery-holiday songs ever.

^This was my very first introduction to Pentatonix - I first heard it as the    background music in an exchange student's Christmas-themed YouTube video, and promptly downloaded this amazingness to my iPod. It reminds me a lot of Christmastime in Egypt, the duality of that struggle that I felt, and the holiday spirit I was able to find.

^Always a favorite.

^Ditto for this one.

NSLI-Y semifinalist!

Hey again, everybody!

Not much new has gone down since the last time I wrote. I'm getting deeply into the holiday spirit that I missed so much at this time last year. Enjoying Christmas lights and music, and the delightfully large quantities of snow that have been falling in the last twenty-four hours here in Ann Arbor. Preparing for a trip to Italy with my mother over the holidays to visit my friends and relatives there. And not to mention, trying and failing to salvage my sanity as finals week begins to rear its ugly head once again.

But I also have been blessed with some incredible news:
I AM A NSLI-Y SEMIFINALIST!!!!!!!!!!

For those of you who may not know it, NSLI-Y (National Security Language Initiative for Youth) is a State Department-sponsored youth scholarship which sends high school students abroad to learn languages not commonly taught in American schools, the ones they offer being Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Persian, Russian, and Turkish.
As they put it, "The National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y), sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, provides merit-based scholarships for eligible high school students to learn less commonly taught languages in summer and academic-year overseas immersion programs. NSLI-Y is part of a U.S. government initiative that prepares American citizens to be leaders in a global world."
Since my insatiable wanderlust and linguistic passions are stronger than ever, originally I was interested in pursuing an AFS summer program for this coming summer, in either Finland, as I've been fascinated by that country and its language and have wanted to travel there and learn Finnish for many years, or a Spanish speaking country (either Spain, Chile, or Paraguay). Unfortunately, it became clear fairly early on that an AFS summer program would not be a financially feasible undertaking. However, I applied to NSLI-Y in the fall for a summer program, with my top three languages choices being Turkish, Russian, and Persian (which send recipients to Turkey, Russia, and Tajikistan, respectively).

But I didn't want to mention it here until I had some idea of if I was going to go or not - and as of this past Wednesday, I do! :)
I was on my way home from school, reading a particularly beautiful passage from "Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro, which I'm currently reading for my literature class, about a beautiful view of the sprawling English countryside seen from the peak of a hill, when my phone buzzed. I casually checked it, not at all expecting it to be anything noteworthy - a text or a Facebook notification, perhaps - and soon had to keep the scream that was waiting to burst out of me bundled up in my chest until I got home - because that buzz was the email informing me that I had been selected as a semifinalist! :D

This still does not mean that I got the scholarship or that I will get to go on one of these summer programs - I won't know that for sure until around March or April, and there's more paperwork to be filled out and an interview to be conducted between now and then.

But now I at least have a very significant hope that I will be able to take advantage of this incredible opportunity to dabble in a new foreign tongue and embark on another odyssey.
Hopefully you will see another post from me sometime in the near future, with the link to a new blog created for a NSLI-Y experience. :)

So (since I might as well practice all of my top choices), :
Güle güle!
до свидания!
!خدا حافظ
Goodbye for now, everyone. And happy holidays! :D

Hope to be back soon with good news,
Nico

PS - Here: A Close-Up Look at NSLI-Y Turkey is a link to a YouTube video about NSLI-Y in Turkey specifically. I tried to place it directly in the post, but it didn't work for some reason. 

A video on yours truly

Well hey there, blogosphere.

It's been a little while since I last wrote, obviously.
Admittedly, not a great deal has changed in the meantime. Just a couple of normal months continuing my somewhat stressful and tiring, but extremely enjoyable and monumental junior year.

Today I wanted to share a little blast from the past with you.
Remember back in my March 21 post when I mentioned the fact that some AFS Egypt staff from Cairo had come to Alexandria in order to film a video about my Egyptian experience?
Well, it's finally done!!! :)

And I'm going to share it with you all.
All kidding aside about the length of time it took, I feel like it was very well put together and portrays what my experience was like quite accurately.
Watching it made me feel very happy, and in spite of whatever trouble or trials I may have had, it reminded me that I do love Egypt, that I had a very rewarding overall experience, and that I do miss many things - the part of the video where my host mother talked about our experience at home almost moved me to tears. :') I miss her a lot.

So please kick back, relax, and enjoy a little 5-minute glimpse into my year in the mother of the world. :)

PS: So there are two other things to which I'd like to give an honorable mention: Firstly, last week was International Education week, which is a week celebrating "the benefits of international education and exchange worldwide." Normally, as in many other AFS chapters, my local AFS Washtenaw chapter celebrated by sending teams of hosted AFSers and returnees to various middle and high schools in the area to give presentations on countries represented. I presented about my experience in Egypt in my hometown's Forsythe Middle School along with a team from this year's batch of hosted students: Yuta from Japan, Irma from Bosnia, Nattakan from Thailand, and Marco from Germany. It was quite enjoyable, and I also enjoyed talking about a friend of mine from the chapter, Melinda, who accompanied us to the event along with Yuta's host mother, about her experience in Egypt, as she lived there for a year with her family back in 1975. It was fascinating to get a chance to compare and contrast experiences with someone who experienced Egypt in a different time and context than I did. :)
Here's another video about IEW in general:

Also, before I go:
I recently also had the honor and the privilege to be able to attend a symposium at one of the University of Michigan museums called "Arts of the Arab World Uprisings," which my mother, who works in the UM Department of Art History, helped organize.
It was a very fascinating event, focusing mostly on how people in countries affected by the Arab Spring used art, particularly graffiti, to express themselves.
Although the symposium has ended, there is a twin exhibit in the Arab American Museum in Dearborn, Michigan which features many of the same fascinating pieces and is open until February 9, 2014.
I highly recommend it (not to mention, the Museum itself, which is a wonderfully interesting place) to anyone interested who is a manageable distance from Dearborn. :)
Here's a link for anyone wanting to take a look.

That's all from me for now, folks.
Possibly more news on more things to come in the near future, but ma' as-salama for now.
-Nico 

A year has passed

It seems impossible, and yet a year ago right now, I was on my flight to my year in the intensely vibrant, beguiling, and complicated jumble of a country that is Egypt, chatting anxiously with Carson, my fellow American AFSer in Egypt, about our hopes, dreams, fears, and excitement for our upcoming ten month odysseys.
And what a ride it was. My sojourn in Egypt challenged me immensely in ways I never imagined it could, but by going I also learned many things, saw many places, and met many people that made it more than worth my while.
It is unbelievable that it's already been a year since then. On one hand, it feels like it was such a short time ago, a goal that I was only just working towards. And on the other, I feel like I've come so far from those moments, that I've grown so much as a person and learned so much that I otherwise never would have.

Readjusting has been, thankfully, easier than I ever could have hoped for. I heard many returnee's tales of very hard reentries that made them feel like outsiders in their own homes and reverse culture shock that was harder than the original culture shock of the exchange itself. And I thankfully haven't experienced that. Other than a bit of initial shock in the first few days, at simply being back (since I hadn't really processed the fact that I was leaving until sitting down on the plane), I have done wonderfully in my reentry, if I do say so myself. It's been wonderful spending time with family and friends that I missed so much while I was away. I bask in the glory of cool(er) weather, world cuisine, abundant nature, frozen yogurt, extracurricular activities, and a generally more liberal atmosphere. I've taken the first segment of diver's ed and am well on my way to getting my license. I've registered as a volunteer with AFS USA to help out my local chapter and to give back to the organization. I started my junior year of high school two-ish weeks ago and I've been enjoying it immensely, getting involved in several clubs along the way already.
The U.SA.'s been good to me since I got back.

In spite of the fact that overall, I had a very good experience in Egypt, now that I'm back I can't help but see what was wrong with my exchange there more clearly.
I'll be perfectly honest; Egypt is not an easy country to go to on exchange, especially high school exchange. Even as far as exchange students go, I'm not kidding when I say that it is not a country for the faint of heart. Exchange is not easy from the get-go - it is nothing less than a leap of faith into the complete unknown of a new country, armed with nothing but hope, anxiousness, fear, and maybe a phrasebook for good measure. It's a complete slap to the senses, a window into another side of human consciousness.
For me, Egypt's culture and language were just so completely different from anything that I had ever seen or experienced in my life that it made it quite hard for me to adjust.
Even though I really love Egypt, and I had a good experience there, there were, like I said in one of my earlier posts before I returned, things that I didn't like that I was glad to be leaving behind (i.e. conservatism, pollution, my school, classism, corruption, the political situation and more stringent AFS rules because of it, etc). Also, the huge linguistic and cultural differences made it very hard for me to make Egyptian friends. One of my biggest grievances about my exchange is that I don't have very many close Egyptian friends. Some, yes. But unfortunately not a lot.
Not to mention, I left about two days before these new riots started.
I know it's probably not healthy to think about it in this way, but at times I can't help but entertain the question: would I have had a more successful exchange in another country?
The brutal truth is that I probably would have.
But I'm not sure that I would have it that way.
I learned so much from my experience in Egypt about myself, about the world, about Islam, and about Egypt itself, that I never would have if I had gone to a different country. I met so many amazingly kind and generous people (the cream of the crop being my lovely host family) that I never would have met otherwise. I got to go to beautiful places, like Cairo, Luxor, Aswan, and Ismailia (not to mention, living in Alexandria) that I never would have seen otherwise.
At the end of the day, I got so much out of my experience in Egypt that I can be happy with, and I'm grateful for that. :)
And don't get me wrong, there are things and people that I miss a lot. Most of all my host family. I worry constantly for them because of all that I hear in the news, even though they keep telling me that they're safe. I am very sad that I didn't get to celebrate Ramadan with them. And we've unfortunately not been able to communicate much lately because of busy schedules on both sides (though we'll make sure to change that).
All I can say is, I miss them like crazy, and really hope that I'll be able to see them at some point in the very near future, when and wherever it may be.

And I also hope that I'm not scaring anyone wishing to visit Egypt in the future, exchange student or not. It has its problems at this point in its history, but it's a very beautiful and amazing country, and it deserves to be seen.
In spite of whatever problems I may have had, it really is an incredible place, and I had a wonderful time there.
And I feel very sad that it's descended into political chaos since I left. I feel terrible hearing my host family and friends there talk about how upset they are at what's happened. I feel very afraid seeing atrocious video footage and pictures of the fighting. I feel very afraid when I see creepy pictures of completely empty streets that are usually filled with cars (because of the curfew that's currently being imposed).
I wish that I could help. And yet I feel completely powerless to do so.
I feel bad seeing Egypt in this much chaos. It has been powerful and great so many times in the past, not just in ancient times, but also in the 19th and 20th centuries. I know that it has the potential to flourish like it did back then.
And I hope that it can be like that again in the future.
And the truth is that, no matter what hardships I may have faced there, I had an amazing experience. I may have many other countries that I am highly interested in visiting or living in, and I will hopefully embark on adventures to these other countries. To Italy again (where I'm actually headed in December to visit my relatives). To Finland. To Spain. To Brazil. To Turkey. To the Czech Republic. To Sweden. To Denmark. To Norway. To Iceland. To Argentina. To Korea. To Chile. To Croatia. To Australia. To New Zealand. To Japan. And a whole load of other countries (I could spend hours completing this list, in case you haven't already noticed :P)
But Egypt will always have a special place in my heart.

I suppose I should end this blog now. It feels very weird to say so, and in many ways I suppose it's because these 75 posts represent my year in the mother of the world, the adventure that I looked forward to and aspired to for four years.
But I'm not afraid anymore of what I talked about in my pre-return jitters post about worrying about not having anything to aspire to anymore since this adventure is over. This adventure may be over. But I will surely go back in the future to visit my host family, and I would hope that they will come and visit me here in the States. And I hope to have other, equally amazing global and local adventures in the near future.
I have a lot of hope and anticipation for the future, and many more dreams that I will do my very best to fulfill.

And lastly, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart to you, all of my readers, for being interested in the story of my journey. When I first started this blog, I never thought it would get that much of a following. When it passed a hundred views, I was impressed. When it passed a thousand views, I was legitimately astounded. And now that it's passed 10,000 views (and counting!), I genuinely cannot express how happy and flattered I am that my story of my ten months in Alexandria has attracted so much attention.
Thank you to each and every one of you for taking an interest in this adventure that has become a part of who I am.

I suppose this will be my last post now. If at some point in the future an Egyptian friend or host family member comes to visit me here, I go back to Egypt to visit my host family, I wish to get up on a small pedestal and say my piece about the current situation in Egypt, or wish to tell you all, my readers, about any new adventures I may be having, or otherwise have anything else relevant to say, I will blog again.
But for now, this is goodbye.

Ma' alf salama everyone.
And

(Thank you.)

-Nico Borbely

Yes, please do.