Synchronized Skating Summer Update: Adrienne Berkowitz
6/15/2009 12:00:00 AM | Synchronized Skating
Adrienne Berkowitz--June 15, 2009
Hey everyone! My summer has been really busy and I can't believe it is already the middle of June! Once I got home from school, I started working at a local hospital helping out in the rehab department doing patient calls, helping out with billing and filing. Then, on May 31 I left for my study abroad trip in international health in France and Switzerland.
Leaving to fly to another country by myself was an odd experience for me. Normally I am surrounded by my teammates excited for a competition, but this time I was all by myself waiting to meet people I barely knew. I met four other students at the Boston airport and we all flew together to Paris.
Our first adventure together was getting from Paris to Dijon where we are spending the first two weeks taking classes. We had to take the metro from the airport to the train station in Paris where we bought our tickets for the train to Dijon. After dragging our luggage on and off metros, we got to the train station. We then found out that all the fast trains of the day were sold out for second class and it would cost us over 100 Euros to sit in first class. We decided against that and were told we could take the regional train for a lot less money. However, we had to get back on the metro and go to a different train station, and the train would not be leaving for another four hours. We made it to the next train station and all promptly fell asleep on top of our luggage. We finally made it to Dijon at 7 p.m. after arriving in Paris at 8:30 a.m. It was a long day and a lot of traveling.
We are all staying the dorms at the university here. Everyone has their own room complete with a sink. However, the bathrooms don't have a sink, which we all find rather odd. The showers are on a timer, and you have to push a button to make them work (it lasts for maybe 45 seconds until you have to hit it again) and there is no controlling the temperature!
Other people began arriving over the next few days, and we spent those days wandering around Dijon getting to know our surroundings. Classes started on June 4. I have two classes every day. The morning class is on international health perspectives and the afternoon one is on European health perspectives.
The first weekend we spent wandering the city. We went out at night and met a group of French kids who we have been hanging out with lately. It is so cool to meet and hang out with people from other cultures. There are also a lot of other Americans here that we have been meeting. Hearing English amongst the French is quite enjoyable!
This past weekend (June 13-14), five of us went down to Cannes (where the international film festival is held every year). Our train was scheduled to leave at 6:45 a.m., however, our taxi failed to pick us up. (The buses were on strike on Saturday, so we couldn't take them.) You should have seen us running down the streets of Dijon with our bags trying to make the train! We didn't make it. Luckily there was another train going to Cannes that left later and was supposed to arrive at 3 p.m. Of course, since I have the worst luck traveling, the train was delayed half way there and we didn't get to Cannes until 4 p.m. We found our hotel, dropped our stuff off and immediately went to the beach.
By the time we got to the beach, it was close to 5 p.m., but still 80 degrees and sunny! We stayed at the beach until 7 p.m. then went searching for dinner. We had been told by our professors that we had to try escargot while in France because it was a specialty. The restaurant that we went to for dinner had it, so of course we tried it! It was kind of chewy but covered in a pesto sauce, so it tasted pretty good! After that we wandered around Cannes.
The next day we woke up early and went to the beach. It was a gorgeous and perfect beach day! We went on a little train tour of Cannes to see where all the famous people stay. Then it was time to come back to Dijon. This time we wanted to purposely miss the train so we could spend another day on the beach!
I have three more days of classes, then mid-terms and then it's off to Paris and Geneva! I am really excited to go to Paris. While we are in Paris and Geneva, we will be having many site visits with places like the WHO (World Health Organization), Doctors Without Borders, and the International Red Cross to name a few. We will spend a week in Paris and then a week in Geneva.
I just recently found out that Johanna Jackson, a recent graduate of Miami University and synchronized skating alumna, is going to be in Paris while I am there. Hopefully we will be able to get together!
Sorry I don't have any pictures to send along with this update. They told us not to bring our computers because the dorms don't have wireless. (They lied ... they do!) We all have to go to the computer labs on campus to use the internet. The keyboards are different in France so writing e-mails, and this post, are rather interesting.
My first two weeks here have been an awesome adventure and I cannot wait for the next four!
This is a continuation in a series of updates from the Miami University synchronized skaters throughout the summer.
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