Day 600: Almost Home

Boarding passes for the flight home after my year abroad. 

Day 600

If my calculations are correct, today is my 600th day in the UK. Well, since I've travelled a bit, I should say my 600th day in Europe (though perhaps not for long... *insert mandatory Brexit joke here*)

At any rate, it's the 600th day since I left Canada. 600 days since I stood in the Halifax airport, surrounded by my bags, and said goodbye to my country. 

It's actually quite a fitting time for this milestone to occur. Firstly, two days ago was the two-year anniversary of the day I discovered I was coming to St. Andrews for the PhD. And, more immediately, I'm now just two days away from heading back to Canada. 

Back with my family for my 22nd birthday

For a variety of reasons, I haven't been back to Canada since starting the PhD. But this summer I'm going back twice-- first to Ontario, where I did my undergrad and masters, and then (in August) to PEI, where my family grew up.

I'm really excited to go back. There are a lot of people I can't wait to see, and I've started to get invited to facebook events at my old Uni that I can actually go to, and, of course, I'm very ready to get my hands on a Tim Hortons ice cap. 

But there are also a few things I'm apprehensive about. I've never been to Canada as a visitor before. I've never been there not as a resident. I have no idea what it'll feel like to just be passing through, now that I don't live there anymore.

I'm worried about it feeling foreign. I pulled out my Canadian money from my stash of random currencies, sorting it out amidst piles of euros, American dollars, and Polish zloty and Romanian lei, and the Canadian money felt just that strange. After the weight of British pound coins, the 'loonie' just felt thin. 

St. Andrews friends at Starlight Ball

I'm worried about saying the wrong things. About accidentally asking where the toilet is, not the bathroom. About complementing someone on their jumper, not their sweater. I'm worried about sounding pretentious because I say 'trousers' and put the stress on the wrong syllable of Renaissance. 

But there's a positive side to the fact that, for a month, I'll be a tourist in my own country. For the first time in my life, I'll be able to see and appreciate what's uniquely Canadian. Having spent 602 days in the UK, I'll be able to enjoy Canadian culture that much more, since I won't be taking it for granted.

I've come back to Canada after a long absence before, of course. Almost three years ago, now, I flew back to Canada after a full year abroad. I remember how weird it felt to stand in the airport, surrounded by people speaking in Canadian accents. I remember trying to walk to my university the next morning, only to take two hours because everything in Canada is so ridiculously spread out.

Cast photo for Utopia Limited, this year's Gilbert and Sullivan show.

I remember hating these things. Reverse culture shock is hard. I missed Scotland. I missed British accents and narrow Scottish alleys and proper Yorkshire tea and decent public transit and having my friends all within walking distance. There were so many things I missed, it was hard to appreciate anything about Canada. 

This time, since I'm only there for a month, I'm ready to love Canada. I'm ready to enjoy how everyone has the same accent. I'm ready to revel in the vast space.

I'm so ready for this chance to realize just how great a country Canada is. I'm ready to see my country with new eyes. 

Day 150: Well, I'm Back

“But Sam turned to Bywater, and so came back up the Hill, as day was ending once more. And he went on, and there was yellow light, and fire within; and the evening meal was ready, and he was expected. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap.
He drew a deep breath. ‘Well, I’m back,’ he said.”

-- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

Final day in St. Andrews- a walk on the 18th hole of the Old Course

Day 150. I’ve been back in Canada for 150 days. Yikes.

It’s been good, for the most part. I won’t lie and say that it wasn’t hard to leave Scotland and that every moment back in Canada has been amazing and that I never want to leave here again. Coming back was difficult and stressful and full of reverse culture shock and longing for cobbled streets and old stone buildings.

But, despite all that, it has been good to come back. I needed to return to Canada and see my country through new eyes. Yes, there are plenty of things that now frustrate me, like how spread out everything is or how people don’t know how to queue or how no one properly appreciates a good cup of tea. Yet, there are so many things I do appreciate, like proper malls and nice airports and heated houses and having all my clothes with me and having a family who knows me so well and loves me anyways.

I’m glad to have returned. I don’t think it would have been good for me to have stayed away much longer. Living the crazy life of an exchange student, it’s far too easy to forget that “home”—whatever that word means—does actually matter.

That’s the problem with going on exchange: it’s so temporary… and so exciting for that very reason. During my one year at St. Andrews I packed in several years’ worth of travel and theatre-going and celebrity-meeting. I did so much that home couldn’t help but feel boring… but I only did so much because I wasn’t at home. My friends who call Britain home could have done just as much as I did, but they didn’t, because they were at home. It was the exchange that gave me license to have such an amazing year, not the living in Britain.

An exchange is fundamentally transitory. It’s got an absolute beginning and end. It’s like a little bubble space off of real life. I never want to say that it has no bearing on real life, because it absolutely does, but it still is a special time that must end. I might even go as far as to say that the fact that an exchange year ends is ultimately what makes it all worthwhile.

That’s why I had to come back. Because returning to Canada and reevaluating my homeland also allows me to look back and appreciate Scotland for what it was: a life changing year. My year abroad changed me in so many ways that didn’t even become evident until I came back. It’s all well and good to reinvent yourself in a new country, but the real test is when you come back “home.”

This probably all sounds too final, like I’m content return home and put my exchange year behind me. That’s not true at all. Right now I’m doing all I can to get myself back to Britain and I still don’t particularly want to stay in Canada long term. But I know that returning here was important, even essential, and I’m so glad, after 150 days, that I came back. 

Day 365: I'm going... Home?

My flight leaves in two hours. I've all but left Scotland- Edinburgh airport doesn't really count as part of the country I've called home for the past year. I've said goodbye to England, to Scotland, to my friends, to St. Andrews... All that's left is to board the plane, sit back, and let it take me across the ocean. 

Am I excited to go back to Canada? Yes, of course. I do miss my country, my friends, my university, my family... I'm looking forward to seeing everything again and it'll be great to start my MA at Western. 

Still, I don't want to go. Over the past year Britain has truly captured my heart. St. Andrews has become my home, the town I know and love best in all the world. When I'm there I truly feel alive, like I belong. 

Going back to Canada doesn't feel like going home- it feels like travelling. Maybe it would be different if I was heading back to PEI, to be with my family, but flying straight back to Ontario, which I'm not particularly attached to, feels almost a little alienating. 

I'm not trying to downplay Ontario, or Western, or my friends there, or Canada as a whole. God has blessed me with twenty wonderful years in that country and I have so much to be thankful for. To all Canadians reading this, I'm not trying to imply that there's anything negative or lacking about our country. I'm proud to be Canadian.

It's just that travelling complicates the idea of home. After living in Britain, gaining the accent, and travelling Europe, I cannot be solely Canadian anymore. When I've lived in more than one place for so long, finding just one place to call home becomes pretty much impossible.

Maybe I'll go back and discover that Canada really is where I belong. Maybe I'll want to settle down there and content myself with occasional visits to Europe. 

But maybe I'll return to find that it's really not my country anymore. Maybe going 'home' will cement my sense that actually Britain is where I want to live long-term. Maybe Canada will be just as amazing as it always was, but I'll want something different. 

At this point I really don't know. I've got my one year MA ahead of me, but then my PhD could be anywhere. Canada, the US, Britain, Australia? Who knows? At this point I'm up for adventure, trusting that God will eventually show me a place I can call home. 

Day 308: Week one of English Teaching

My first week of teaching English in Romania is officially a wrap. It's really satisfying to have finished a full week, but it's also a little sad to think that a quarter of my time here is already up, with only one more week until I switch schools and host families. 

This week has gone pretty much as well as I could have hoped. Monday was certainly a low point: I was tired from my first day of teaching, I was really confused about what was going on because I don't speak any Romanian, I was lonely because I wasn't able to meet up with the other student teachers, and I just really wanted to call my mom but I couldn't find an app that would let me call phones.

The thing is, after last year in Quebec, I've learned that adjusting to a new place is hard. I know that I'm likely going to feel miserable for the first few days. And that's okay, because now, one week on, I'm so glad I came. 

My host family is great. They have a large house on the edge of Suceava, so I get my own room and bathroom. The food is amazing- we've had shrimp and calimari, homemade schnitzel, goulash, stuffed pastries, and, of course, plenty of Romanian traditional dishes. My main problem is knowing how to politely decline food because I'm already way too full!

As for the teaching, it's been better than anticipated. I was a bit upset because I was allocated my last choice of group, 9-14 year olds in the afternoon, when I wanted to teach 15-18 year olds in the morning. However, when I first walked into class, I discovered that my students are mainly 13-16, and their English is fantastic. They're young enough to be pretty enthusiastic (I was worried about a 'too-cool-for-school' attitude, but it hasn't been a problem) but old enough to be taught at a fairly advanced level. 

The teaching isn't really conventional classroom style. I don't give them workbooks or expect them to memorize lists of irregular verbs. Instead, the point of the summer school is to have fun in an English-speaking environment. Most of the lessons are much more like games, and if the students aren't enjoying a particular exercise I don't drag it out. I don't make a concrete lesson plan for the day; instead, I come to class with a list of games and choose whichever one seems to flow naturally from the mood in the classroom. As a former homeschooler, who worked one whatever subject I felt like at the time, I love this more organic approach. 

The school also puts an emphasis on learning about other cultures. Tuesday July 1st was Canada day, so I showed up to school in a big Canada hat, showed the kids photos about Canada on my iPad, and passed around some Canadian money. Since that was my first Canada day ever out of the country, I was so happy to share the occasion with my students. 

On Friday, instead of our normal teaching hours, we held a ceilidh (a Scottish dance, pronounced Kay-lee) in the morning. Since the other teachers weren't as keen, I got the job of 'calling' the ceilidh, meaning I would teach the kids the steps and then yell them out while they danced. I was impressed by how fast the kids caught on, especially the little ones, and I'm looking forward to next Friday's last day of school ceilidh party. 

Suceava itself isn't the most interesting place to spend a month- it's not a touristy place at all, so there isn't much for us to other than sit in pubs and enjoy the cheap cocktails. The weather has been fairly cool for Romania, which I'm quite happy about, as it's been consistently mid-20s. I was worried it would be ridiculously hot, but instead it's been pretty comfortable. 

I'll write more about Romanian culture later. For now, I'm off to visit a monastery with my host family, then tomorrow I'll hike up a mountain with the other student teachers. After a week of teaching, this weekend will be a fantastic holiday. 

Day 202: Summer Plans

(I visited Stonehenge the other day-- so cool! Blog with more pics coming soon)

I was planning a big post on day 200, but since I was rather busy that day and I had just made a big deal of the halfway mark on day 187, there was really no need to go on again about how it feels like I've been here forever and how I've changed so much and yada yada yada... 

Instead, as I sit in the Southampton airport waiting for my flight to Belfast, I'll briefly describe my plans for the summer.

My exams end the second last week of May, leaving me a few days to pack up and start saying goodbye to friends before my mum comes out, hopefully in the last week of May. We'll then travel around Scotland, Germany, and the Netherlands together (my mum's side of the family is Dutch, and mum did an exchange in Germany) for a few weeks.

I'll be back in St. Andrews for a few weeks mid June, possibly doing some acting, watching my friends graduate, or climbing mountains (I'd love to climb Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in the UK-- anyone up for it?)

At the very end of June I head off to Romania, where I'll spend a month teaching English in the city of Suceava. Suceava is right in the northeast corner of Romania, putting it only about half an hour drive from the Ukraine border... so let's pray that the situation doesn't escalate while I'm out there.

After Romania, I have a week before I can return to the UK, since my visa expires on my birthday, July 31st. After that date I'll re-enter the UK as a visitor, but before then I'll probably travel around a bit, possibly spending my birthday in Rome (which is one of my top places in the world to visit.)

August will find me in Harrogate, a city in northern England which hosts (this year) the International Gilbert and Sullivan festival. St. Andrews will be sending our production of The Sorcerer down, and I hope to get involved with a couple other shows as a chorus member.  I also plan to travel a bit during August, maybe finally making my long-warranted trip down to Wales. 

As of yet, I don't know when I'm going back to Canada. What I'd absolutely love is if I could stay until the second week of September and meet up with my friend Sharon, my former roommate and BFF who is coming to St. Andrews on exchange next year. I also might spend a day or two at St. Andrews during fresher's week, which would be so much fun. All this depends on when my MA program starts, however, so it's a bit up in the air. 

And that's my summer! A lot of fun things planned, a lot more possibilities... It's really fun to look forward and see how many things I could do. Obviously many of my plans won't work out-- I don't have time to do everything I want to do, sadly-- but whatever happens, this summer will be full of new and exciting experiences. My time at St. Andrews may be drawing to a close, but the adventure is nowhere near over. 

Day 134: The One-Third Mark

(I'm currently in Budapest- so gorgeous!)

A bit over a week ago, around the time I got to the Netherlands, I passed the four-month mark of my time here in Europe. Since it appears that I'll be over here for a total of around a year, this also means that I've spent just over a third of my time.

It's a little odd that such a sizeable chunk is gone, but what's more odd is that I've only been here for four months, a third of my year in Europe. In many ways, it feels much longer. I've already finished my first semester, with just one more to go, so it seems like I should be half done. However, the second semester is much longer, with more breaks, and then there's the whole summer after that.

The biggest thing, though, is that I feel like I've been an international traveller for longer than four months. Now, sitting in an airport in Brussels, waiting to leave for Budapest, then Bratislava, Vienna, Prague, and finally London, travel has just become part of life. It seems odd that four and a half months ago I hadn't been out of Canada for longer than a week.

My whole mentality towards the world has changed. I guess that's what an exchange is supposed to do-- broaden your perspective. Yes, Canada is a diverse, multicultural country with two official languages and a wide variety of people and landscapes. Still, that's nothing to Europe with its endless variety.

Brussels was a fantastic example of this variety. There are two official languages, French and Flemish (a type of Dutch) and English is also frequently spoken. The friend I stayed with was half Spanish and half Greek, so conversations at their dinner table flowed seamlessly between languages (with the occasional pause to translate something for me-- I could normally follow along, but French puns are still a little beyond me!)

It'll be strange when I go back to Canada and everything will be in English (with a bit of Quebec French). I'll be able to say that I'm from PEI, rather than "Prince Edward Island, an island on the east coast." I won't be able to pop over to another country for a weekend or book a return flight for $50. I'll just have one currency in my wallet, not six, and I won't have to constantly convert everything back to Canadian dollars in my head.

It'll be comforting to go back to Canada. After flying with budget airlines from Brussels to Budapest, AirCanada flights from Charlottetown to Toronto will never seem stressful again! Because, of course, travelling Europe does involve a lot of stress. Constantly meeting new people and being in new places has basically exploded my comfort zone.

And that's a good thing. That's what I wanted this trip to do. And now that it's happened, now that this semi-nomadic life has become the norm, it's weird to think that just four months ago, I was so different. 

Day 90: Dublin

Yeah, I haven't finished posting about London yet. I still need to talk about all the sightseeing I did, but that post might be a while in coming because there are just so many photos I need to edit. So, in the meantime, I'll fill you in on some more immediate news.

I'm in Dublin!

Kayla and I arrived here yesterday afternoon, and we've already seen and done so much stuff. We're staying with my cousin, Marie, who just so happened to move to Dublin within days of my move to St. Andrews. Kayla and I spent the day touring while Marie worked, then tonight we went out to an Irish pub and enjoyed some fantastic live music.

So far, I don't think that Dublin will make it on my list of favourite cities, but I do love the Irishness. The accents are fantastic, the music is great, and the people are so friendly. I really hope I get to tour around the countryside at some point so I can get a taste of rural Dublin.

I ought to mention: there is a Tim Horton's in Dublin, which I was so eager to visit (for anyone who's not Canadian, Tim Horton's is the best coffee shop of life. All Canadians are addicted to it). However,  Tim's here is not the same as back in Canada. I had a cappuccino and, while it wasn't bad, it wasn't the familiar flavour from back home. So disappointing...

Anyways, it's nearly 3am, and we've got another busy day ahead of us tomorrow. I'll post in much greater detail at some point, likely once I have a few pictures. For now... goodnight!

Explore Day 9

Shameless selfie: New dress for the wedding

Day 9. One week, two weekends. Sometimes it feels like I’ve been here forever, other times it seems like I just got here.

The second half of this week has been far better than the first half. While certain things haven’t changed—such as my prof’s opinion of me—other aspects of life here have definitely improved. For instance, a bunch of my tea-making friends and I have decided that we’re gonna start cooking together, and sometimes making big dinners with cuisine from different cultures. Is it sad that I’m most excited that a girl from Nova Scotia is planning on making lobster?

Explore kids by this gorgeous lake before the ropes course

Student life here has been great over the past few days, as I’ve participated in some fun activities and made a bunch of new friends. I’ve been shopping (there’s a great mall right next to Laval), had lunch in Old Quebec, and spent the day at a ropes course in Duchesnay. The ropes course was great fun, even though I stupidly decided to take the ‘extreme’ lap. Apparently my friend and I were the only girls who did the extreme section, and my muscles are definitely paying for it today!

Birthday party bonfire

Off-campus, I’ve been getting more involved with the church community. On Friday night I went to a wedding, Saturday night to a birthday party, and two church services today. It’s been lovely getting to know some of the people in the church. Many of them speak English quite well, but I also enjoy talking to the ones who barely know English, because it forces me to speak French. Also, it’s helpful for me to listen to actual Francophones speaking French, since most of the time on campus I just hear Anglophones like me butchering the language… :)  

Throwing rice at the new couple

I think this next week will be a turning point, since I have my first test on Tuesday, and a bunch of other assignments coming up. If I do well on the test, the academic side of life here could improve drastically. Right now, I kind of dread sitting in class for 3-4 hours every morning. Then again, it is just the morning, and I have the rest of the day to enjoy Quebec City.

Tulips along the walk to church

Also, it could really stand to get warmer. I’m ready to ditch the jeans and sweaters in favour of sundresses. But this is Canada, after all…

William and Kate visited PEI!

Right now the royal couple, Prince William and his new wife Katharine, are touring Canada. They stopped in Ottawa a couple days, and Sunday night they arrived on Prince Edward Island, Canada’s smallest province. On Monday morning they visited Charlottetown and were joined by about 30,000 people (including myself.) Since I know the royal wedding was a huge deal, I thought some of you might like to see some pictures from my ‘royal stalking.’

First off, Charlottetown was busy. It’s the capital of the province but only about 30,000 people live there, so the turnout to watch William and Kate ride in the carriage from Province House down to the water was about as big as the population of the city. I went with a friend and we got there about two hours before the event actually started. There were already so many people there that you couldn’t get within five feet of the barriers.

I got lucky and we managed to find a place behind a news platform, which meant that I was looking through that rather than over peoples' heads. Since I’m short, trying to see over people really wasn’t working. As is, I didn’t actually see much, thanks to all the media in the way, but I managed to get some okay pics. 

At around 10:40 the royal couple left Province House and stood outside while the Premier and the Speaker for the house gave a couple short speeches. When they were done, William went up to the podium and talked for about a minute about how happy he was to be here, that sort of thing. Short, but sweet.

After the speeches they did a quick walk-around shaking hands. Kate went around the other side, covered by an umbrella (it was raining a little) so I didn’t get any good pics of her, but William came right around five feet away from me. Unluckily, those five feet were jam packed with people so I didn’t get anywhere near enough to shake his hand, but I got a couple nice closeup shots.

When they were both done, they waited under an umbrella for the carriage to be readied. It was the Governor General’s special carriage, brought all the way from Ottawa. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any good pics of them inside the carriage (thanks to someone shoving their cellphone up in the way just as my camera was taking a pic) but I certainly cheered as loud as everyone else as they drove down the street towards the harbour.

At this point the royals were off to a private function and I went to lunch, not with them, of course. Hence, I have no more pictures for you, but since they were followed by more than 1200 members of the media, you can find plenty of pics online. Here’s a news article that you can check out if you’d like some more information on William and Kate’s Canadian tour. I’ve just got to say that I’m so happy they chose to visit PEI and I was thrilled to be able to see the royal couple, even if it was just for a couple minutes.