CRIS GOES ABROAD

Having to leave everything that is familiar to you can be terrifying, especially when you are doing so to go live at a stranger's house. I get it, we've all been through it. I had the privilege to meet my host family prior to my exchange as they were traveling to Europe for the summer, so that was my luck. I know that not a lot of students can say the same, but it is always worth it to go abroad with an open mind and positive thoughts anyway. Our happy thinking sometimes isn't enough and we do end up feeling like we don't belong, homesick or lonely. Fear no more, I have the perfect TV series to keep you company.

The Fosters.

When I didn't feel particularly up to do much during my exchange, I'd watch a lot of tv series. That isn't because I wasn't enjoying my experience, but that's just who I am. I am attracted to the film industry and tv in general. One of the shows that particularly kept me company while I was gone on my exchange was The Fosters. As the title may spoil, the series talk about foster care, and beyond. The main characters fight unhealthy social systems, spreading the message that everyone is loved and welcome to be whoever they are. Two lesbians open their doors to many foster kids who over the years, as the story evolves, get officially adopted by these two incredible women. 

The story covers heavy topics, like cancer, lgbtq+ stories, gun violence, stalkers, broken hearts, mental health, and insecurities of all sorts. Unfortunately, we can relate, to some extent, to a lot of these things, but the bottom line is that we can go through everything if we stick together and help each other out. This incredible family kept me company over the years. I've watched the show when I was in the United States of America as an exchange student, but also when I was home in Italy, studying in Denmark or in the United Kingdom. I've felt lonely sometimes, I didn't have much money to go out and do things, so I'd stay home and binge-watch. Some people can't do that, but I discovered that I can and I'm not afraid to say that this series gifted me many smiles when I needed them.

How does this show relates to people being on an exchange you say? Well, I think about my host parents. They opened up their home to me and many more exchange students over the years. Doing that enables many things. When they welcomed me to their house, shared their belonging and food with me, we established a relationship that is now unbreakable. It is obviously very different from fostering someone who has been through the system, but these experiences have something in common: trust. It's hard to believe that people are willing to share what they have (e.g. a home) with someone they don't already trust - but that is why we have time. We spend time with each other and we learn things about one another. 

I really learned a lot watching The Fosters and I hope that I somehow influenced you because it's worth a watch. It's currently not on Netflix. Its network is the former ABC Family, now Freeform, but I'm sure that if you are like me you will find a way to watch it even if you are not from the USA and don't have access to Freeform. 

What is your favorite tv series? and why? Comment below!

- Cris

For the past few years, I've been packing, unpacking, moving out, moving back in, taking off, landing, getting a new job, enrolling in new universities, shaking new hands, engaging with strangers, going to socials, events, and such things. Great! In fact, this is why I've done it and I keep doing it. 

But... would travel exist without home?

No. Our birthplace is our starting point. That is the one thing that we can't change about ourselves. Think about it. We can change homes, countries, even our own name, but not the place where we are born. That is something that we will always carry with us. When we travel, we embrace new cultures and welcome new habits into our lives, but we always tend to share our own with foreigners. We may not even be the patriotic kinds but as soon as people open their mouths to say something bad about our country, we suddenly step in and defend it as if they were talking poorly about us. Isn't it true? We take it personally. We think we are the only ones allowed to talk in a certain way about our birthplace.

As I moved from one place to the other, I looked for peace. I looked for my happy place. And from time to time, I even thought I finally found it. The truth is that most times that feeling would be temporary and my mind would still take me back to Milan. I'd miss doing the same boring things I've done since I was a kid. Who would have actually thought? Feelings, though, always change.

 I want to decide for myself whether my assigned place is actually the right one for me or not, and in order to do so, I travel. I explore. I feel things. 

We do have the power to change things. Play the game. You may have been born and raised somewhere, but where do you want to grow up? Where do you want to mature? Where do you want to say your last words? I strongly believe that we are the authors of our own destiny, we just need to know how to write.

- Cris

Cristian Meets Coventry.

There's nothing better than a gloomy Sunday to catch up with my dear blog. I'm sitting in my room, sipping warm tea, playing acoustic music and letting my thoughts run through my head. 

I moved to the United Kingdom when it was technically still summer, even though when I arrived here the weather was just cold and... well, terrible. Not a great start for a new beginning, but everything counts. I applied for the University airport pick up service because I thought that it was the easiest way to get to my new home but I arrived in Coventry super late on a Saturday night, so no one was at the reception to check me in. Once I got everything sorted, I walked towards my flat, I entered my room and found out that there was no bedding. Long story short, I slept with two layers of clothes and my bathrobe and I was still cold. Again, not a fabulous day to begin with, but whatever.

Four days into my study abroad experience, I changed room. I moved from the ground floor to the first floor of a new block. My flatmates were just as loud as the people below me right now. So yeah, I'm in desperate need of a change once again, but the University's housing team won't let me break the contract unless I find someone willing to take over my room. The situation has been going on for too long, to the point that I don't sleep well at night, I can't focus when I do homework, and I just don't look forward to going back to the dorm at the end of the day.

Cheers on the luck I'm lacking.

That said, I enjoy the University. The facilities are quite good, my classes are very interesting, and my lecturers well prepared. When something bad occurs I always try to keep in mind that there are good things, and in my case classes are the positive aspect about the experience. I came to the UK with an open mind and the desire to take my skills to the next level, and I feel like I have the opportunity to do so here.

Hong Kong Design Institute.

My class is composed of exactly nine individuals. I know, it is pretty small, at least when you compare it to other classes that count up to a few hundreds of students. What is cool about it though is that my classmates and I got to know each other fairly well, which is what we need because we do have to team up quite often for group projects. It didn't take long to establish a relationship with the lecturers either, which is great because if a problem occurs, the lecturer can help you as he or she actually knows you, not just your name or face.

We may not be numerous in Coventry, but the thing is - my course runs in Hong Kong as well. Why is that cool? Because I get to go there to work on a cool project sometimes in December. I'm sure it's going to be an amazing experience from which I will be able to learn a lot. In addition, I've never been to Asia so I am really looking forward to trying new foods and see more of the world we live in.

Tips for you.

As I mentioned earlier, housing for me has been - and still is - a huge problem that I have to fix. All I can say to you is: read every contract before you sign; think of all the options before making a decision; seek help and support from everybody. To me, the dorm seemed a good place to live at. I've seen it as a good way to make friends, but I also thought that there I wouldn't feel alone and that I wouldn't have to worry about bills and such things. Turns out that I had to pay extra money to change from one room to another and that I didn't meet anyone who I can now call my friend. I am actually quite annoyed by the fact that university accommodation is too expensive for what it actually really is. I share the bathroom and the kitchen with other five people. My room is just right next to the kitchen which means that I can hear loud and clear every conversation that people have in there, it doesn't matter if there are two or ten people in there - anything that I can hear through these paper walls is categorized as noise. I literally went to four different places to seek help to change my room. Sooner or later, someone will realize I am a person and not a walking bag of money.

In conclusion, keep in mind that there is a 50/50 chance that you may have a good or terrible experience in University-managed halls, but if you will want to move out, you will most likely still be liable towards your room or will have to find a replacement. There's never too much thinking when it comes to making decisions that will affect your next few months or years of your life. Think twice, think three times. If you need help don't hesitate to contact me.

- Cris

We've all been there. We all dream to meet our friends from exchange again and it always feels impossible, or too far in the future, but this time it finally happened. My friend from Ecuador, Anita, and her friends flew to Europe for the first time this summer. It just worked out perfectly because we contacted our friend from Germany, Torben, and we all met in Milan, which is where we spent most of our time, but not all. Let's see where we went.

Artistic Venice and its Canals.

Since my Brazilian friend and my Italian friend have never been to Venice before, and I was planning to go there with my exchange student friends, I decided to extend the invitation to everybody. The seven of us went to this beautiful city for one full day. I was the only one who visited before, therefore I was guiding them from one place to another.

Everywhere I go I try to find a way to see the place from above. Fondaco Dei Tedeschi seemed to be the answer to our problems. What's particularly good about it? It's free! You just have to book your visit and wait for your turn. Was it beautiful? We don't know! ...It started raining just as little as ten minutes before our booking and the staff was forced to close the terrace due to weather conditions.

So we moved to the next attraction: Quinn's "Mani" (hands) sculpture.

Gone. It was gone. I was just assuming that the sculpture was going to stay long term but it actually has been three months since its removal. We continued our walking tour of Venice and by lunchtime, we reached Piazza San Marco, and so did our bad luck.

We were tired, hungry and rained on. We spotted some steps on which we were planning to sit on but we barely had the time to get close to them that a lady told us that it was prohibited to either sit or eat there. Confused, we found out that in Piazza San Marco it is prohibited to sit on the steps or eat, otherwise people can get tickets between €25 and €500! We just didn't like the way they approached us, and other tourists too. I told my friends that I was sorry we were treated that way and that even if I am Italian I have never experienced anything like that in the past, so we ended up eating our paninis there, because yes, apparently it is okay to eat as long as you stand. Weird.

The results of our Google research "Where to go or what to do in Venice when it rains" didn't really satisfy us so we ended up recharging our energies at Burger King.

We enjoyed the day anyway, in fact, we met two tourists from Vienna that were really nice to us when we kindly asked to take some pictures, but we also met another lady at the station who gave up two taxi passes (worth €60 each!) because she was leaving and wasn't going to use them anymore. Very cool! Shoutout to Italotreno staff for allowing us to sit together even if we were assigned random seats when we purchased the tickets.

Milan, an Alpha Global City.

I was born and raised in this city, I showed it to several of my international friends over the years and I never get bored of it, although bad luck decided to follow us back to Milan from Venice. I specifically chose Sunday because Pirellone observatory opens to the public and the view over the city is really cool - but I found out that Comune di Milano stopped the visits temporarily, which means that we were not able to go. At least I googled it before we reached the place, so we went to these places instead: Piazza Affari (the stock exchange), Duomo Cathedral, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele (the exclusive shopping mall), Piazza Liberty, Quadrilatero della Moda (the fashion district), Castello Sforzesco (a 14th-century fortification), Arco della Pace (the arch of peace), Chinatown, Garibaldi & Piazza Gae Aulenti (which hosts the highest skyscraper in the whole country), and ended our walking tour in Navigli, where we had aperitivo. Something cool? We met a girl from Serbia, who happened to be part of AIESEC and so we spent some time with her talking about traveling and foreign languages.

The Touristy Lake Como.

This place never seems to be missing from the list of places to visit in Northern Italy. Since it seems like luck has never been on our side, we ended up losing two trains to Como, boarding a train that eventually never left Milan, and to finally take one that arrived at our destination ten minutes later than expected. I'm not kidding. We lost the train to Como Nord Lago at 1.10pm and we arrived in Como S. Giovanni at 4pm. What a pain in the ass. Wanna know what's funny? The train to Como was the only one that carried delays. Ha.

We took the Funicolare to Brunate to enjoy the view. It's amazing because you can actually see Milan from the top. The round trip ride costs €5.50, which I thought was reasonable. I would avoid going when the sun is still warm and over the lake because the water reflects all the light and it's not the best.

It has definitely been a trip for the books. I'm glad that we were also a bit unlucky and that our plans got changed because all of that made it even more special. There are things that just ourselves can understand. They won't make sense to other people even if you try to explain them in twenty different ways. I have been able to see a lot of people from my exchange throughout the years, but this was the first time that we were more than two. 

And you? Have you met your exchange buddies? If not, are you planning to soon? And where? Your host country, home country or elsewhere?

- Cris

People still ask me how I get to do all the things I do. All I can say is that there is a lot of planning behind everything and that if I don't have anything to do, I come up with something. I have never been on a road trip in the United States, so I left my house for about 50 hours along with my American brother, Hunter, and his special friend from the Czech Republic, Katerina.

First Stop: Four Corners.

Second Stop: Canyonlands & Arches National Parks.

We made it to Utah! Our first stop in the neighbor state was made at Canyonlands National Park, which was really cool because it felt like if we were at the Grand Canyon but we were obviously not. We hiked and followed the trail for a while until we came across a rock shaped like a... butt. It was kind of funny, so we had to take some pictures. Right after that, we went to Arches National Park, which is not very far from where we were. The land was red and the arches amazing. We drove throughout the Park and then we left to have some dinner. Since we were road tripping west, we decided to have authentic American food (or maybe not). We had Thai food. Sorry not sorry, it was delicious.

Colorado welcomed us back with open arms and since it was getting warm, we decided to stop in Glenwood Springs, which is famous for its natural hot springs. After the pool, I went for a walk and took some pictures. The town is really nice, but there was a lot of construction going on.

Hunter and I have been to Vail before but Katerina didn't and since I was driving I thought it was worth to stop and show her around. It is famous for being one of the best ski destinations in Colorado. We only had a small tiny problem: it started to rain heavily so we bought a coffee at a place called Yeti's Grind and afterwards we got stuck in a shop for a while until we decided to just run to the car - wet or dry. I've been in Vail three times; once in April, once in May and once in June. I don't know why but out of the three times, the weather changed drastically two times and went from being warm to being cold. The first time I was there I was wearing a t-shirt and complaining about how hot it was and by the end of my meal I was wearing a jacket and running to the car in the snow. Colorado weather is called bipolar for a reason.

The trip was nice but definitely too short. I am glad I had the opportunity to see the places I saw and to drive the number of miles I did. There's just something beautiful about driving miles and miles with the music blasting and friends singing along with you that I can't really describe. I can't wait to go on a road trip again. To see more pictures of my amazing trip, visit my Instagram at @heicristian.