Month: October 2016

Hola amigos! Not too much to report this week from Spain! I’m still going to class every day and watching the little boy, Carlos, twice a week. I’m thoroughly enjoying every day I get to spend here, it’s amazing! Also, my Spanish has gotten 10x better, which I would never have been able to do in the US.

This weekend we had to do a scavenger hunt for my Bucknell class. We got to go to a lot of places that I would have never known were in Granada (…because they were suuuuuper far way). My friend Maha and I walked about 7 miles on both Saturday and Sunday! Unfortunately, a lot of it was uphill too… I’ve added some of our pictures from the hunt!

It’s very interesting that everyone here wants to talk about the elections in the US. We talk about it in class, in restaurants, and here in my host mom’s house. Yesterday I sent in my absentee ballot, which was super complicated, but I did it!

That’s about it from this week! On Friday I fly to Amsterdam! Can’t wait to tell you all about it!

Hope everything is going well across the ocean! Miss you all

Bix

Hej,

BIG DAY FOR BETHANY TODAY!!!  I am officially a yellow belt in karate!!!  To fill you in, I skyped with my host family over the summer, about a month before I came to Copenhagen.  While talking to them, they mentioned an opportunity I had to bring home something extra with me when I return to the states in December.  I bit, asking what I could do.  They said karate.  I could join a beginners class with my host mom and have the chance to come home with my white, yellow, and orange belt.  I said yes, of course!!  So, every Monday and Wednesday afternoon, I head to Solrød Karate Club and participate in the beginner class.  Not bad, right?  Except I’m in Denmark, so the class is in…you guessed it, Danish.  I literally have zero idea what is going on about 83% of the time, and I have learned to just kind of follow what others are doing.  My host mom also acts as a translator when I need one.  When I first started, my host mom told me not to worry, because some of the class is in Japanese.  I looked at her and said all of it is jibberish to me, so I cannot tell when they are speaking Japanese versus Danish.  But, I still really enjoy the class, and tonight I took my first step to a black belt!  This is the first belt I have actually earned, and I am so happy with myself for deciding to try karate.

While today was probably the most exciting day of the past week, I did do some fun things during the rest of the week.  Last weekend, I finally got to visit Tivoli!  It is the second-oldest operating amusement park in the world.  Tivoli also gets redecorated for each holiday season, so I got to see the Halloween set up.  But don’t worry, I’ll be back to see it in November for the Christmas decorations.

School work is slowly piling up, with midterms and papers galore.  It is crazy how fast the semester is moving.  Next week is my second travel break, where I will be travelling to Italy and Greece.  After that, I have only five weeks left of school!!  I am loving it here, and I hope you guys are enjoying the semester back home.  I want to say congrats on the Skotedis Cup win and the great work at Head of the Charles.  I miss you all!  Keep working hard 🙂

Best,

Bethany

你们好！

This was my last week with my homestay family. It was a great experience and significantly helped to improve my Chinese.

I am now on a two and a half week trip with my group traveling around the Yunnan province. Some of the more famous cities we will be visiting include: Dali, Lijiang, and Shangrila.

For one night, we stayed on a Doaist mountain and had a lecture from a Daoist monk. We were able to go on a 10 mile hike with over 6 different temples a few hundred years old. I put my early morning riser skills to good use and was the only person in my group who woke up a 4:30 am to practice Taiji with the monk at the temple and listen to him play a flute for three hours. It was definitely worth and is a memory I will have for the rest of my life.

In Dali, I visited the famous and Three Pagodas. We also went to a tea plantation, picked tea leaves and roasted our own green tea! We also learned how to do traditional tie-dye of the Bai ethnic minority.

Tomorrow, I will be entering a rural home stay for five days. The family will not speak mandarin Chinese nor will they speak English so it will be an extremely interesting time!

Unfortunately, wifi is extremely limited here and I am unable to upload photos, hopefully next week I’ll be able to add some!

<3Elizabeth