People & Places

Hello, all.

It's been a while, I know. I haven't even posted my update from Spain which was at least a month ago. At least I was able to upload a video!
Speaking of which, in case you guys didn't see it yet, I made a video from our huge mulch-distrcit conference in Paris, which was last weekend. If you'd like to check it out, here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNC9-PRCL1Y

I have a lot going on in my head right now, so I'm going to split it up into sections.

Milestones

I'm at the point in my exchange where I'm really starting to think about change. I have 66 days left in this beautiful country and in this extravagant new life. I'm not even sure if I can still call it a new life, because all of this is my life now. Every time I Skype with my family and see things like my cats, my kitchen, things that used to be my every-day activities, it feels weird. They're not habits for me anymore. My everyday life is 100% different now. I'm not really sure where home is anymore.

But that's the reality we have to face with exchange; the inevitability of change. Changing families, changing languages, friends, habits, schools, style, personality...the list goes on. Some people ignore the thought of going home until the last minute, some people can't stop thinking about it until the day comes.
For me, it's half & half. I have completely understood the fact that I will leave all this one day. All this work I've done here to be happy, make friends, learn new things and a new language, it has to end one day, and that's okay. I don't believe in getting too caught up in things like this. And it might sound a little depressing, but it's not. I'm not mourning over the fact that I will leave all this soon, but rather accepting it.
The acceptance of inevitability will get you much further than mourning the truth.

So I will spend these next two months, 66 days, 10 weeks, how ever you want to measure it, profiting from every single experience I have here. Weather it's having picnics in the park with my friends, drinking my morning coffee and chatting with my host parents, laughing at dinner conversations, or having good discussions with my favourite teachers here. Every moment counts, every moment will soon be a memory.

Realisations

I've met loads of new people lately. Changing families always introduces new people and experiences. In my last family, there is another American girl who goes to the University in town, Université Catholique de l'Ouest (CATO for short). Her name is Maddy and she's a student from Notre Dame, spending her second semester of her junior year here in Angers.
CATO has a massive American exchange program. The four main schools that exchange with CATO are Notre Dame, University of Oregon, Kentucky State, and University of Kansas. I even met some kids from Portland State last semester.
Because my host mum works at the university, this family always hosts Americans with the Notre Dame program, and because both of my host siblings were Rotary exchange students, they also host the Rotary kids.
I have really enjoyed living with another American girl and meeting all her friends. Of course, meeting exchange students is quite the norm for Rotary kids, as we are always very close with each other. But meeting people who are in college is a different experience. I love talking to them about their majors, interesting classes they've taken, traveling, and the college experience in a whole. Not that I don't love my Rotary kids, but college exchange students have a whole new perspective. Because they're all so serious in their studies and majors, they each have new idea to offer me.
For example, I was talking to a girl the other day who is very passionate about history. She's taken loads of interesting classes and always has her nose in a book.
I talked to another girl who is a theatre minor and a total Shakespeare nerd like me. She's also Italian and spent a high school exchange in Switzerland where she spoke Italian. Now she's in France perfecting her French.
In fact, this girl;s name is Catherine, and she has a blog, as well. She's doing 80 interviews with her last 80 days here, and it is extremely enjoyable to read.
Here's the link:
http://csulli01.wordpress.com/

Reading her blog reenforced my one philosophy in life: if everyone in the world was an exchange student, we would have a lot less problems.

This is something I talk about a lot, and the more I travel and meet more people, the more I am convinced that it's true (I'm not sure if I've already explained my theory on this topic, but I'm going to reiterate it). If you read Catherine's blog, you will see many quotes about how if people just sat down and got to know each other and enjoyed life and it's beauty, the world would be a much more peaceful place. All exchange students have the same idea of  learning cultures and turning new friends into family. We don't want to just learn the culture, we want to live it. We all want to make the world a little less black and white. That's why we stress that if everyone stops and enjoys everything life has to offer, we would all be much happier living on the same planet.
The idea is if everyone took the time to travel and learn other people's cultures, struggles, and ways of life, we would all have a mutual understanding of one another. For example, an upper-class American politician is not going to have any sympathy for someone who lives in the slums of a third-world country if he's never walked a mile in his shoes. How can we truly search for the solution to problems if we don't understand the predicament in the first place? This is the importance of travel.
I know so many people who have never left the U.S. and have no desire to. That's not to say that you should feel bad that you don't want to go on a mission trip or join the Peace Corps. That also doesn't mean you're selfish because you can't afford to go to places like this. But the simple lack of curiosity for this massive land mass we call Earth baffles me. There's no spark of discovery, no passion to see new things.

So...what can you do?

Talk to exchange students. Whether it's someone who was an exchange student, someone currently in your country, or someone who's about to leave, ask them questions. Ask them about their thoughts, feelings, fears, accomplishments, good times, bad times, and even worse times. You learn the most on exchange when you're at your lowest and get back up again...so ask them about these times! If you yourself can't get out in the world to do these things, talk to people who do. Who knows? Maybe they'll inspire you to go to it yourself..... ;)

Bliss

This is one of my favourite words. I feel like it captures a whole new type of happiness. When you experience bliss, you're at the maximum level of content. It's not the feeling of endorphins overwhelming your brain or wanting to scream from the rooftops. It's more of an adrenaline rush of tranquility. You're at a peak of happiness where there's not much more you can do but to sit back and enjoy every second of it.

I feel as if this feeling comes from accomplishments and rewards. I feel as if I've accomplished a lot lately, as I've been making a lot of realisations about myself as a person. I've definitely had some hard times to work through lately. I've had some epiphanies, some good, some awful. I've realsied what time I have left here, as I mentioned before. I've realsied what the next few months of my life are going to consist of. But all of these things are worth it when I look at how far I've come.
I've developed so many traits and skills over the past few months. I've learned how to control certain things and how to let go of others. I feel like my head is a huge book that just keeps getting longer and longer. I feel as if I can't ever let myself stop exploring. It's an amazing feeling when you learn what you're capable of.

Where am I going with this?

After all this, I feel as if it's going to pay off very very soon. In 11 days from today, in fact. Because in 11 days, my family will arrive here. My mum, dad, sister, and grandmother are coming to stay with me for about 12 days. I cannot wait for them to meet the person I've become. They get to see my life here and everything I've come to know so well.
And the one person whom I look up to more than anyone will see me in this new life. This person, who has done and seen more than I can ever imagine. This person who's head is not just a book, but a series of novels. This person, you may ask, is my grandmother, Elaine Snowden, and she is the coolest person in the world.
Being the youngest in my family, I always feel like I'm the last to do anything. I don't understand anything yet because everyone else has been there, done that. This exchange is the one thing that makes me who I am and makes me unique from the people who know me the best. All of my family is incredibly proud of me for doing this, and I feel like I'll make them even more proud when they meet the person I've become.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aaaaaaaand scene.
That's what's been on my mind. In case that was too much for anyone to read, here's all that I've talked about in a nutshell:
I changed host families, my real family is coming in a week and a half, I went to Paris last weekend and met ALL the Rotary kids in Paris (about 502 people), and I've been doing rather well lately.
I don't even think I'm sad to come home anymore. I've had a killer time here and still have cool stuff left to do. I will most likely feel differently when I actually get home, but for now, I'm doing alright.

I hope this wasn't too overwhelming to read, but this is what happens when I don't write for a long time. Lesson learned, I suppose.

Thank you to all who are still tuned into my life here and a special thanks to all of my friends who have kept in contact with me. I don't think you guys realise how nice it is to hear from you every once in a while.


More to come soon. LOTS of traveling and good times ahead.
A bientot!

~Effy

Weird-ness

Bonsoir.

I'm feeling a little odd about this blog. My goal and objective with it is getting a little wonky.

As you guys know, I recently took a trip to Paris and Barcelona with my Rotary friends. I took lots of photos and videos and I wrote a lot, as well, in my journal.
And as much as I love documenting and sharing my experiences with you, I'm not quite sure what is my main method of sharing these experiences.
I'm starting to feel like I need to post on my blog so I can keep a public record of these times, not necessarily for expression myself. I've already posted all of my photos on Facebook, made a video diary of the trip, and am currently writing a post for this blog. I also write a lot in my personal journal. I feel like I'm using too many outlets for documenting my trips and it's getting a tad stressful.

I haven't come to a solution yet. I want the photos on Facebook for everyone to see (because I know not everyone reads my blog), but I want to keep documenting my total exchange on this blog (on the same note, not everyone frequently reads my Facebook, so the blog is another good way to keep people updated).

No matter what I do, I'm going to keep making videos because ultimately, assuming I was efficient with taking videos during whatever I was doing, it's the easiest and most enjoyable to make content for you guys to see.

So, for now, here's the link to my video I made about Spain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsnX_3DCkDk

....and you can expect more videos soon about cool stuff I'm doing on holiday or with friends or with Rotary.

Sorry I haven't been good with keeping things fresh. I realised the last time I wrote on here was the end of the first trimester. It's now the end of the second trimester and I only have three months left on my exchange. But I have more fun stuff happening in these next few months than I did in the winter so it'll make for better content.

That's all for now, but I will write back soon about Spain and about this holiday.

A bientot!
~Effy

Oops.

Hey, guys. It's been a pretty long while and I apologise for that.
But with good reason! I have a life here now! I've been going out a lot and making lots of new friends lately. Also the first trimester of school ended a couple weeks ago which means I'm already 1/3 through my exchange, which is mad for me to think about.
And with the holidays (and a Rotary weekend!) coming up, I thought I'd make a post just to let you guys know I'm alive.

What you can expect soon is many cooking posts, Christmas-y things, vlogs, and many more things. The holidays are gonna bring some really neat stuff to do.
I might even get to go to the south of France for Christmas, which is one of my #1 destinations in France! I'm super pumped about that.

But yeah, this is a very informal post with nothing significant or important. Just trying to keep the blog fresh and let you guys know what I'm up to.

A bientot!
~Effy

Quickie: I Made Lasagna, Too.

 Bonsoir!

Two posts in one day??
Yep. I made dinner. I'll give you guys a play-by-play.

Soaked the pasta in hot water

Makin' sauce. The red one is tomato sauce with ground beef. The other pot is just melted butter, but it was the base of a bechamel sauce. Basically it's the think, creamy goodness that goes in between the pasta and meat sauce layers in the lasagna.

Then I took out the pasta (my host mum took this one)...

...layered everything together...

...popped it in the oven...

BAM DELICIOUSNESS.

This post is just for more cooking photos. Nothing significant. Just photos of the meal I cooked. I love cooking with my new family and was really excited that I got to make dinner and then eat my muffins for dessert. It really makes me feel like a part of the family.

Alright, I leave you with this photo of my host dad and I.

Bonne nuit!
~Effy

Effy in the Kitchen

Bon Après-midi!

Today I have a special blog post! I will be doing a documentation of my first baking experience in France, along with some tips for cooking in another country (believe me, these tips are worth noting).

To start off, I'd like to point out that baking in a new place is hard. New kitchen, new ingredients, new tools, etc. As someone who is quite familiar with the kitchen, I was ready for the challenge. I figured that I could problem solve if I really needed to (and believe me, I really needed to). So if you're someone, say, and exchange student, who is not too experienced in the kitchen and wants the low-down, this is the place for you!

Today's experiment: Chocolate Chip Muffeleins.

I'd like to consider this an Effy Akamian special. Bet you've never had a Muffelein before.

  My real mum makes the absolute best muffins I've ever had, so I wanted to try to make some. They're faily easy and I was certain that we already had most of the things I needed to make it. The recipe she sent me was a muffin recipe that called for blueberries and orange zest for falvour, but I decided to use chocolate chips instead  to make them more suitable for dessert. I'm gonna give you guys some photos to show my process, along with some cliff notes to inform you of my mistakes and quick fixes.

Step 1: Convert your measurements (Optional, if you are not American)

This was where I ran into my first problem. Not only do tablespoons and teaspoons not exist here, but I had to convert some things to liters and some things to grams, and it depended on WHAT I was measuring (for example, flour and sugar do not measure the same), as seen in this photo:

As you can see, there's grids that mark what you're measuring. 100 grams of flour measures differently than 100g of sugar, hence why it was so complicated for me.

As for the tablespoons and teaspoons, I eyeballed it. Tablespoons are easy to guess because they're the same amount as a normal sized spoon. The teaspoons were tricky, but I think I did alright!

Step 2: Gather your ingredients.

Luckily, this recipe was fairly easy. I didn't even need butter or some fancy flavour extract. However, every country is different when it comes to cooking and baking. I realised this when I asked if my host mum had any baking soda. I tried to translate it into French, and she had no idea what I was talking about. I tried to translate baking powder to see if it was the same thing (and because the recipe called for baking powder, as well) but it was something different. Luckily, we had the baking powder, but she still had no idea what baking soda was. So the chemistry nerd inside of me translated "sodium bicarbonate" into French, which confused her even more. She then asked me if it was the same thing that you "brush you teeth with"....
At this point, I had to resort to Google to make sure I wasn't the only person who had this problem. According to the many threads of cooking questions that I read, baking soda doesn't exist here. It's considered an "old fashioned" way of baking. As I said before, baking and cooking is different in every country. Another way to get the same effect as baking soda is to whip egg whites and fold them into your batter (also a very French style of baking, same method used in making macarons). But because I didn't know how much egg whites I would need, I ended up using this:

  Yep. It's teeth whitener. Sodium bicarbonate is an active ingredient in toothpaste. It's the magical stuff that makes your teeth white when you buy your favourite super mega ultra pearly white toothpaste. 

You may be wondering why the hell I decided to use teeth whitener in my muffin recipe. My host mum wondered the same thing, telling me that it probably wasn't an important ingredient. But baking soda is a very very important thing, as it is the raising agent when you bake things. Also a very important reason why you should never confuse or substitute baking powder for baking soda. 
Aside from the slightly minty smell, it really didn't make that much of a difference in the overall flavour of the batter, so  I went with it. Gotta do what ya gotta do. There's no way I could have successfully made these muffins without it.

Anyways, back to baking!

Step 3: Put dat stuff together.

As you can see, this was where I ran into another problem: I didn't have a muffin pan....
My host sister said that her grandmother had one, but at this point it was too late and I had already been improvising. So I decided to use Madeleine pans!

Being someone who was already familiar with Madeleines, as they were a childhood favourite and still are, let me give you the low-down on what they are; they're French ass cookies that are a tad tricky to make right because of the pan. I recall my mum telling me that the tricky thing about making Madeleines and all their deliciousness is baking them correctly. So doing this right took a few tries. I decided to bake the pans one at a time as a sort of trial and error and take photos along the way.

As you can see in this photo, the first ones were pretty full, and the second I put them in the oven, I was afraid they wouldn't work.

The problem was that I filled them completely. I took into consideration how much muffins usually rise and got worried. But I had already taken so many risks, I thought I might give it a chance.

Here was the result of batch one:

As you can see, they did exactly what I thought they would. The centers of the little guys rose really high, and the middle started oozing out. But they baked thoroughly had a rather nice bronze edge.
Result: not a total failure!





Second batch, I decided not to fill them as much and reduce the baking time:

And here was the result:

Yep, turned out pretty nice! Not too brown, less dry in the middle, and I even got that pretty shell shape. Pretty good, huh?
To give you more of an idea of the difference from the first batch, here's a comparison: 

As you can see, they baked much more evenly and turned out a lot more moist and less browned. Overall, I was pretty happy with how they turned out. Took a few times to get them just right, but like I said, wasn't a total failure! They might even whiten your teeth!
*The recipe made 10 muffins, which ended up being 4 batches with these Madeleine pans, a total of

So, what have we learned today? Here are the three things I took away from today's experiment:
1) Convert your ingredients thoroughly.
2) Make sure all of the ingredients you need are available to you.
3) Take risks!

I hope you guys learned something from today. And if cooking isn't your thing, I hope this was entertaining! I cook a lot with this host family, so I'll most likely be writing about more cooking experiences in the near future (or at least posting photos).

Until next time, bon appétit!

~Effy

Quickie: Vlogs?

Hello, all!

I'm going to start doing more short posts as I feel I don't update my blog as much as I should. I don't always have a lot of things to write about, so I'm going to start doing "quickies"!

Since my blog has been getting a lot of attention, which makes me VERY happy, I've finally decided to commit to video blogging as well!

If my blog recieved over 3,000 views within the next few weeks, I will start making video blogs as well as my usual text posts.

This was something that I had planned on doing in the beginning but I never had time to do it. But now, seeing how many of you read my posts, I'm ready to start doing it.

BUT I NEED YOUR HELP!

I really love hearing feeback from people. If you guys could tell me what kind of things you would like to see, I'll try my best to make it happen. I'm not going to start doing these videos without some suggestion because it's a lot of effort for something that people won't enjoy as much. But I've gotten so many requests for more photos that I decided it was a good idea.

So please, COMMENT.

Tell me what you guys wanna see!

A bientot!
~Effy

Making Yourself At Home

Bonne apres-midi!

I feel like a topic that we (exchange students) don't go very in depth-with is our living situations. So today I'd like to talk about what it's like living with a host family.

First of all, I'd like to mention that not all exchange students stay with families. Rotary does this because we are high school students and are obviously not capable of living on our own on exchange, as we do not do that at home, either. I cannot speak for people that live in college dorms and such. It's a much different experience.
Second, the way host families works with Rotary is that you usually have three throughout your stay. I know this differs depending on where you go or where you're from (I know Aussis and Kiwis have more than 3 because they're here for a lot longer). It also depends on what the club sets up for you. My district has had a problem with not having enough people wanting to host.

My situation is that I have three families. My first and third families live right next door, but all three live right by my high school. It's about a 5 minute walk to school from each home. I'm incredibly lucky because I know some people who have to take 40 minute bus rides to get to school. I'm with my first family until mid-November, and I move to my third family in April. It's roughly 3 months for each.

However, I can say that I would much prefer (at this point in time) to stay with a host family. Maybe I'll feel differently when I go on exchange in college, but for now, it's really nice.
Although, at first, it is a little hard to make yourself at home in someone's home that you've never been in before. It's hard to learn the little everyday things that they do in the kitchen, living room, how to set the table for dinner, how to clean up....you get the picture. It's especially hard to learn these things when they're explained to you in another language. After two months of being here, I still have a lot of trouble understanding when my host mum asks me to do little things.
*Tip: Translate little words like "wet", "dry", "hot", "cold", "open", "close", "clean", "dirty"...it makes a big difference when you're trying to explain things!

Though it is good to spend time and talk with your family, it's always okay to have some alone time! I find myself lounging in my bedroom reading or playing games on my phone when I need a break. I also take naps pretty frequently, but that's just from being exhausted from speaking all day. It's also important to mention that sometimes in the beginning you get a little overwhelmed or homesick at really random moments. Times like this are good opportunities to take some time for yourself. Don't worry, no one expects 100% from you all the time!

The other neat thing about living with a host family is just getting to know them. It's such a change when you're living in a house with new people because there's SO much to talk about. You live completely different lives and you've just stepped into theirs....so talk! It is really difficult to have conversations sometimes, but there's no such thing as too much practice when it comes to language. It's a little exhausting, but it's worth it! Not to mention how many new words you learn every day!

Overall, living with families is a really good experience. There's so much I could talk about that it's making my brain go blank, so I'll leave it up to you guys to ask the things you wanna know!
I can't even begin to imagine how my high school and college exchanges will differ purely from the living situations. It'll be an interesting contrast. 

Welp, that's all I've got to share right now. Like I said; ask question! I'll do a Q&A post if I get enough feedback from people.

A bientot!

~Effy