'Tis the Season to be Jolly

I know, I know. It's been quite a while. But I've made a resolution. I don't actually believe in resolutions for New Year's, I'm more of a "do-it-now-or-never" kinda gal. So here goes: I want to post more regularly. Especially now, since I just started a week-long road trip through Texas with my family. At some point everything that's happening will just be too overwhelming, so I'll try to find about an hour every day to post what's going on. That is one of the "advantages" of traveling with my family - I don't go out as much at nights and thus have more time.

So Christmas is already over but I really enjoyed experiencing it in the US this year. Even beforehand I was eager to see how crazy Americans would be about it, considering what I had seen for Halloween. Soon after Halloween, the first people started to decorate their houses with Christmas lights and ornaments and I couldn't help but complain more than once about the hideous Christmas decorations I encountered (in my opinion).

Still, there were a lot of things I also enjoyed about this time of year. The first snow, baking Christmas cookies, snow ball fights, making egg nog from scratch, snow day, buying hideous Christmas decorations + jewelery + sweater myself, to name but a few.

Egg nog

Then there were the Christmas trees, Christmas songs (to a certain extent), and ugly Christmas sweater parties that I enjoyed. And in general just hanging out with my new families in the US.

Christmas tree in my dorm room (probably illegal)

Friend's Christmas tree decorations

There is some more I could tell about Christmas in particular but I might do that at a later point. So that's my recap of Christmas in the US so far. It was slightly crazy but also enjoyable.

Everyday Life

Just a few impressions of what I am up to all the time.

Studying in the library.

Watching football games (I actually did that only once - it was really boring).

Hanging out by the river with Mark.

Taking pictures on campus.

Culturefest.

My name in Nepali and Chinese.

Traveling and relaxing.

Near Boston and Salem.

Goin' with the seasons...Fall

One thing that New England is famous for is the colorful foliage in the fall. And I have to agree with people who claim that the colors are amazing and that the whole changing of the leaves is worth seeing. People here have asked me why people/tourists are so fascinated. Even though fall can be really beautiful at home, too, the colors are just not comparable.

Most of my pictures were taken around campus. I saw some incredibly beautiful places where the leaves had the most amazing colors, but I did not always have my camera with me, or I was in a car so taking pictures proved to be a little bit difficult. However, I think I managed to capture more or less what all the fuss is about...

Halloween Madness

I know that this is coming a little late (about one month late, to be precise). But I still thought I'd share some impressions that I had from my first real Halloween. It was basically a party the whole weekend and I spent most of my time in Portland. Due to some very lucky circumstances, I also had the chance to go to Salem, Massachusetts for a day! It was amazing to see the capital of Halloween and all the craziness going on there.

Even though I try to avoid clichés as much as possible, right now I just can't resist: A pictures says more than 1,000 words. Thus, no more talking about Halloween, only showing.

Halloween Decorations:

Halloween Store:

Halloween Food:

Halloween Costumes:

CAN 101 Intro to Canada

Even before I came to Maine more than two months ago, I was hoping I would be able to go to Canada at some point. Surprisingly, that point came sooner than expected. After finding out about a field trip for CAN 101, a class that I don’t actually attend, I was beyond thrilled. That field trip enabled me to go to Ottawa, Canada’s capital for $ 100. This amount included the bus trip, two nights in a very nice hotel, and entrance fees and tour fees to a number of places. Score!

Altogether, I think we were a group of about 50 people, about 1/5 being international students. We left at 8 am on Thursday, October 21. The bus trip was almost nine hours long but it actually wasn’t too bad with friends on the bus, MP3 players, and movies that they showed (The Necessities of Life and Bon Cop Bad Cop). Crossing the border was very exciting, mainly because I got a new stamp in my passport. Score!

We arrived in Ottawa at around 5 pm and immediately checked into Les Suites Hotel. We were divided into groups of four and I shared a room with Yuna (my roommate), Amparo (from Belgium), and Rachel (from England). The room was amazing. We had a kitchen, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a quite huge living room. Since we didn’t want to waste any time, we took showers immediately and got ready for going out for dinner. After dinner we experienced Ottawa nightlife, which was fantastic. Score again! 

The next day, we left quite early to go to the Museum of Civilization. (That whole day was actually packed with museums and stuff which I was kind of forced to do.) After some coffee I was finally awake and could enjoy the gorgeous view from the museum. The next stop was the American Embassy which was simply boring. I’ve been to the American Embassy in Vienna and I’ve been to other embassies before so those were two hours that I could have done something more fun. Next we headed to the Parliament (after a short “lunch” break which really wasn’t a lunch break) where we had a tour. The Parliament was beautiful and despite the over-enthusiastic tour guide, I really liked it. At around 3 pm, we finally arrived at our last stop of the day (that many museums in one day are exhausting): the National Gallery. After the National Gallery we were finally allowed to do whatever - which we did.

In the Museum of Civilization

Parliament

In front of the National Gallery

Since nobody had really eaten anything all day, our mission was to find food, preferably the Ottawa specialty “poutine”. Poutine is a dish that consists of fries, gravy, and cheese. It sounds and looks disgusting but it is actually delicious! Luckily we found a place right next to our hotel. Score!

Poutine

That delish dish made us all quite tired so we took a nap before checking out Ottawa nightlife on a Friday. It rocked again and on the way out it actually started snowing. Which made me really happy.

On Saturday, we had to check out by 10.30 am so after packing my few belongings I headed out with a couple of friends to find some brunch. Which we did and I have to admit that I had poutine again. Horrible, I know, and so unhealthy, but sooo delish. Since I’m back in Orono, I’ve been trying to eat extra healthy, though. The bus ride home felt quite long but after two nights out it could have been far worse. Fortunately, we didn’t have any problems reentering the US and at around 9 pm we arrived back home.

So what’s my impression of Canada? I loved it. It was very interesting to see the difference between American and Canadian culture, especially since Canada is so much more influenced by European culture (which I really appreciated).

Will I go back? Definitely. Hopefully I will be able to go on a trip, which is organized by the university, to Québec in February! Canada beware: Heute ist nicht alle Tage; ich komm wieder, keine Frage!

More pictures are on my picasa website: http://picasaweb.google.com/yvonne.kaisinger 

Two months in

It is hard to believe that I’ve been at UMaine for two months already. What did I do; where did the time go?

Before trying to recount what was going on in my life since my last post, I thought I’d recapitulate the last two months. First thing that everyone is wondering about: how do I like it here and how am I doing? I still love it at UMaine and in Maine in general. I cannot even begin to describe how lucky I feel to be here and simply to have the opportunity to live in the States for a year. 

I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts that there are also things that I am not too happy about. The one thing that hasn’t changed is that I am not a fan of American food. But thanks to my kitchen and my cooking skills, I’ve still managed quite well so far and I prefer looking at the bright side of things. So I’ve more or less accepted American food culture (even though I still like to complain about it from time to time).

One of the things about UMaine that I really appreciate is the library, aka the place where I’m writing this blog post right now. Unlike the library in Salzburg, Fogler Library is open every day and, except for Friday and Saturday, it is open until midnight every day as well. Since I live in a dorm where it is rather hard for me to study, I usually study, read, and do my homework in the library. And unlike the library in Salzburg, you’re allowed to bring all of your stuff, meaning your laptop and something to drink (and illegally also to eat). So it happens quite often that I end up spending at least half my day in the library. I get a lot done here and there’s a cafeteria in the building which comes in handy when I need to recharge my batteries.

Another aspect about UMaine that I really appreciate, especially because it is so contrary to the university at home, is that the university (or certain university organizations) organizes trips all the time. So far I’ve been on a two-day kayak trip, a day trip to Camden on the coast, and a three-day trip to Canada’s Capital, Ottawa. Those trips are usually very well organized, heavily funded (and thus quite cheap), and always a good way to get away from campus.

Camden, Maine

The last point that I’d like to mention today is that the reason why I feel so much at home here is largely due to the group of international students that are here. We were kind of “forced” to hang out from the beginning because of orientation for international students. However, we ended up being a fun group that loves to do stuff together (like going to Canada). The group is very diverse, consisting of students from Germany, France, England, Ireland, Belgium, Canada, Australia, and some Americans that could actually pass for international students. I always avoid using too many clichés (I actually just read some homework about that) but sometimes clichés are true. So to come to an end with this blog, I’ll post a couple of pictures because a picture can sometimes say more than 554 words of a blog post.

A Seakayaking Trip that Was None

Since I don’t keep this blog updated as much as I had hoped, I will write about current things that are going on and in between write about my first couple of weeks here. I don’t have the intention of sharing every single event anyway, so this should work out fine.

A couple of weeks ago, I signed up for a weekend seakayaking trip with a couple of friends and fellow international students. After looking forward to this trip for a long time, we finally went kayaking on Saturday morning. However, things turned out to be quite complicated at times and plans changed several times before and over the course of the weekend. The first change was from the expected SEAkayaking to normal kayaking due to flood and storm warnings on the coast. Instead, the Kale and Nate, the two guides that should take us (i.e. a group of six international students), decided to go to a lake in the northeast of Maine.

On Saturday morning, we were all more or less ready to go at 7 am but we had to wait for the van for way too long, meaning I could have slept for another two hours. Anyways, after some basic kayaking instructions indoors, loading the van, and some more complications, we finally left campus. Like the last couple of weekends, we were very lucky with the weather. After a quick and very necessary coffee stop, we drove north for almost three hours. On the way to Pocumcus Lake I saw my first moose! It was only for a short time, but everyone in our group got really excited and we took it as a good sign.

Kale + our kayaks

We still drove quite a while longer before we finally arrived at our destination. Such a long car trip makes you hungry, so we had lunch before we packed up our stuff and left in our kayaks. Things had been a little complicated before, and from the beginning of actually kayaking, it was very windy which made it very difficult to navigate through the water, not lose each other, etc. My last kayak trip had been a while ago, so I wasn’t too surprised when I “stranded” in shallow water and needed the help of Nate to get out again. Realizing that things would not work out the way we had hoped (again), we decided to just go along the shore until we’d find a good place to camp.

For that we didn’t really have to go very far. We found a beautiful secluded beach on an island (the beach was literally an island itself) where we decided to spend the night. Since it had gotten pretty warm and the wind had died down, our group of international students decided to partake in one of our favorite pastimes: swimming. We didn’t actually swim a lot, but just went into the water and enjoyed the warm water and the sun. Then it was time to build our tents (which we didn’t, our guides did) and start preparing dinner (ditto). But we all went to look for some fire wood and that just made me feel like a child again – in a good way.

For dinner we had pasta with vegetables which was quite nice and, as a surprise, a highly praised dessert: grasshopper pie. It was…disgusting! However, the guides were really surprised to find out that we didn’t enjoy it. Luckily, they went to bed early and we stayed up for a long time, enjoying the fire and watching the stars. There was no light from any civilization nearby, so you could see an amazing amount of stars. After the fire died down we finally had to go to bed, i.e. our sleeping bags outside. I didn’t really get a lot of sleep because temperatures dropped to around zero that night.

In the morning, the sun more or less woke me up, and after a quick breakfast, we headed out again. For a while we went along the shore again and simply enjoyed the beautiful weather and the amazing landscape. Towards noon we turned to head back to the van to go back home.

  

Nothing really interesting happened after that. The most exciting thing that afternoon was a coffee break at Reggie’s along the way. Classic.

Back at UMaine we still had to unpack and clean everything before we dragged our tired bodies home to have a quick dinner and go to bed early.

With my roommate Yuna

With Mark