Sevilla..once again!

Hola amigos :)

Here we are again in the beautiful city of Sevilla.
We arrived 1 September 2011 and got picked up by Paola's "old" Spanish hostmother and driven straight to the appartment we have rented in Sevilla. Yes..that is right..we have been here before :)

(MOVIE FLASHBACK..heh.,)
Back in 2008 we both studied Spanish in CLIC International House Sevilla and lived in two different Spanish host families. This was exactly where we met, fell in love and started our journey to Italy and Denmark together =)
So we already knew the city and had some network which has made the start of this semester and experience simply great!

In fact we found our appartment thanks to some Spanish friends. The location couldn't be better, right next to the cathedral - in other words right in the centre.

The university, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, didn't start untill 9 September, so the first week was actually vacation..and a most needed one, as we decided to spent our summer studying in Copenhagen Business School. In CBS we attended and happily passed Organisational Behaviour and Macroeconomics, as we were not sure if these were available in this semester.
It turned out to be a great decision, and we would therefore recommend other students to do the same.

So the first week went with revisiting favourite tapas bars (tapas bar guide will be supplied later ;), go out with friends, refreshing our Spanish and just enjoying life! :)

The university is pretty large and this year we were 500 ERASMUS students in total from all corners of the world. The international environment is really good, and you integrate very fast both with other ERASMUS students but also Spanish.
One advantage of UPO is also that you can choose between ALL courses taught and not just from one specfic undergraduate/bachelor degree. There are also quite a few business and management related courses which are taught in English. However, there are not very many leisure related subjects.

Now the university courses have really started up strong so this it all that it will be for now :)

Hasta pronto a todos y que lo paséis bien ;)

First weeks in Barcelona

Hola a todos,

since I cannot avoid to sit down anymore and actually write something about my experiences in Barcelona I decided to stop running away from it and just spill it out. We girls cannot give the guys (Frederik and Christian) the lead!

I arrived in Barcelona on the 15^th of August together with Vincent. We decided to take the cheap alternative and booked tickets with Ryan Air and yes I would like to say “Never again” but unfortunately the price is so tempting and I am sure I would do it again.
After a big fight with the staff at the Bremen airport about our hand luggage at 6 o’clock in the morning we arrived in Barcelona (Girona) tired and exhausted. After taking the bus to the city center and several different metros we arrived at the Universidad Autónoma in the north of Barcelona. The campus is huge, bigger than anything I have seen so far. There is even a separate bus system for the campus but since the buses did not work yet in August we had to walk up the hill with our luggage in the heat of midday. When we finally got our room in the hostel we were dead tired and took a long break.
In the next days we looked at rooms but also did some sightseeing and beach visits to enjoy our time in Barcelona. After around four days I found a nice apartment in central Barcelona with three Spanish roommates.
Vincent had to leave soon after to return to Nykøbing which was a very sad but unavoidable good bye.
In the first few weeks I got to know my roommate better and saw some more things in Barcelona. I also had to do the administrative things like registering here at the police station which took me around three hours to do, since there are always a lot of people in the waiting room. In the beginning of September I had my first meeting at the university, registering, getting my student ID and signing up for the classes. This was not as easy and it took me until this week to get all my courses the way I wanted and not all on the same day at the same time. Some courses are in Spanish others taught in English and I also got a Spanish class to practice my Spanish a little. Unfortunately in the university the Spanish students are not very interested in Erasmus students so I am mostly talking to other Erasmus students from Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Poland.
Besides the people in school I also met some nice people through my roommates and it is great to see the city through the eyes of Spanish speaking people that have lived here in Barcelona for some time. I have gone out and tried great restaurant and great clubs. Barcelona has everything to offer from high class discos to small alternative bars and clubs. I am mostly staying away from the typical Erasmus activities because I would like to see the real Barcelona as much as possible instead of the touristy endless Erasmus parties that are available every day.
It is difficult to meet Catalan citizens, because they mostly keep to themselves and do not let many outside persons in. They are very proud of their language, Catalan, and it is seen everywhere. Catalan is a mixture of French and Spanish with small Italian and Portuguese influences. All the signs in the city are in Catalan, some are translated into Spanish as well. Most homepages are in Catalan and not all are translated to Spanish or even English. The teachers usually teach in Catalan and only make exceptions for Erasmus students.
All in all Barcelona is a great choice for an Erasmus semester and I am very happy to have made this decision.

Reading over what I have written so far I am surprised how easy it was to write so much in such a short time after overcoming my inhibitions. Maybe this will not be so difficult to bring myself to do this more often from now on.
Until then HASTA LUEGO from Barcelona and MUCHOS BESOS Y GRAN ABRAZOS!

Borneo - First Contact

Right in the moment when Christian and me stepped into the plane in Frankfurt we felt like we already had left Europe and entered a whole new world with a new culture. We directly noticed the music, the flight staff and the guests who all sounded and appeared in a different way.

The great thing about having a lot of travelling experience is the way you can quickly accommodate yourself to somehow familiar situations. In this way I followed a kind of routine to make myself more comfortable in the plane: First I turned off the tornado coming out of the air ventilation system above my head, took my shoes off, spread out the blanket and switched through the video-on-demand system in the little screen in front of me. A few movies, Malaysian flight food, power naps and some reading later our plane landed in Kuala Lumpur (or KL, like the cool kids say). We had about an hour to get our connecting flight, so we directly went to the customs, got our bags and checked in again for the flight to Kuching. The staff at the counter were a bit surprised that we still wanted to check in but were super helpful to get us to the gate as quickly as possible – about 10 minutes later we were lifting off.

On the airport in Kuching we directly met Linda, a very friendly person working for the UCSI university - our university for the semester abroad starting in January. From that moment we entered a very smooth process and quickly got Malaysian SIM-cards, saw the university, visited our workplace from our first internship (Masama JS Adventure Tours) und also met Julia (one of the two interns who will be replaced by us). We continued our drive to our apartment and got a tour of our new place which pretty much blew my mind! It’s a two-storey apartment, provided directly for the interns and barely 5 minutes walking distance to the city centre. What’s more is that the living room itself is basically bigger than my flat in Denmark.

We didn’t waste much time sitting around (because we would have probably lost the fight against the jet lag), so we just dropped off our bags and went to the city. Julia showed us around and we made a break in her favourite kedai kopi (Coffee Shop). Christian and me weren’t really sure how to behave in such a kedai kopi, so we just followed Julia’s lead and ordered a Teh O Peng – a cold Earl Grey Tea with Sugar, Milk and Ice Cubes. Considering the humid and hot weather conditions, this drink was definitely the right choice in order to get some re-hydration.

Later on the same day (I still managed to not fall asleep so I would adapt faster to the time difference) we went out with Julia and Leonie (the other intern) to get some food and drinks. At some point when we were sitting in the bar and surrounded by around 7 new people Christian and me suddenly felt like we’ve been already here for a solid 3 weeks. We could really feel the open attitude of the Malaysians and the friendly and personal way you normally just have a in a conversation with friend you have known for some time.

At this very moment it’s really been about 3 weeks since we arrived in Borneo and a lot has happened since. On the first weekend, Christian and me went kayaking with the girls on the Sarawak River and were amazed by the massive trees leaning over the water. I actually think we were more looking around and watching the scenery than moving forward with the boat.

The internship at Masama directly started on the first day and we already got a good insight into the office life (e.g. Booking system) as well as the products being sold. To elaborate on this, Christian and me were split up and distributed on the various tours offered by the company.

Last week I went on a tour to the longhouse Ngemah of the Iban tribe. For anyone who is interested into the culture of Malaysia and wants to get a better understanding of how the tribes have been living for over a hundred years, I can definitely recommend a trip to the longhouse. We reached the Iban longhouse by a longboat where I could directly notice the major skills of the Ibans to operate long boats. From time to time, however, we had to step out of the long boat because the current was pretty strong and some parts of the river quite shallow.

At the longhouse we first had to take our shoes off before we got welcomed by a glass of Tuak (Rice Wine). After that we had to present ourselves to the chief who welcomed us to his house. Before we had dinner (very delicious, everything spiced with chilli and eaten on the floor) I walked around and greeted every Iban. Most of them didn’t speak any English, so I used body language which surprisingly works pretty well for most of the conversations. Some kids were very fascinated by my big white hand and I almost had a hard time to continue my stroll in the longhouse as I was occupied for some time giving little High-Fives to all the happy kids. An encounter with the chief followed where he said jokingly (I think) that he would like to wrestle me. I declined politely which he agreed upon before he started to laugh.

What’s to say about Ngemah is that it was not build for tourism purposes unlike other longhouses. It still serves as a place to live for the Ibans who sometimes return from the city in the holiday season or for the weekend in order to meet the family again and follow old traditions. As guests we were lucky to see one of these traditions and got a dance performance in the night. It ended up in a big circle and we all got invited to dance with the Ibans in the circle. I wasn’t really sure how to move but noticed at one point I must’ve alternated the traditional moves slightly as I looked around and a happy Iban behind me was imitating my dancing style. He started to laugh, I started to laugh and we kept on dancing in the circle. After a little more dancing, Tuak and Langkau (Rice Schnapps) I retreated to my bed which was a mattress covered with a mosquito net.

The next day we stopped with our longboat on a riverbank and made a traditional meal consisting of rice and chicken cooked in bamboo above the open fire. For this the ingredients are packed into banana leafs (or similar trees) and stuffed into the bamboo. In this way the food is heated above the fire for a good hour which cooks the rice and the chicken in a slow and super delicious way.

Besides visiting Ngemah I got one more favourite place so far being the Bako National Park. I was lucky to follow 3 Day-Trips to this park which might not be the biggest of Sarawak but definitely one of the most diverse: in seven vegetation zones you can walk on 17 different trails and see 37 species of mammals, 24 of reptiles and 184 of birds. One of the famous animals of Bako is the proboscis monkey with the quite… expressive nose. If you’re a patient and calm person, you can get a good look at these primates.

The second time I was in Bako we were a group of about 9 people when one of the two guides said he had heard some Proboscis monkeys in the forest. If we would act very patiently the monkey will come down to the beach in the mangrove forest. There was low tide and the afternoon sun was burning down on us when suddenly one, two and then about 10 Proboscis monkey came out of the forest for a stroll on the beach. Between the older ones there were little monkey kids playfully climbing up trees only to jump down again and run after the older ones who were heading towards the sea. There are really amazing moments like this one which directly make me realize I arrived on another part of the world. I’m looking forward to the next moment.

Keep on rockin,

FS