A sweet experience
My trip to New York | EF New York
Hi.
Lets start simple. Do you get goosebumps when you hear those two words?
No. No, You don’t? Oh err… sorry then you either might be wrong here — or you might want to get fascinated and inspired about NY, do you? Because you definitely will. Okay okay, maybe it’s usual to not get goosebumps. Well, up to you. So let’s add some moving pictures to this to get you convinced! :)
I hope I was able to show you with my video impressions how I lived in New York for three weeks. It wasn’t in a house or hotel, but at the campus of EF New York.
Once you have lived in New York and made it your home, no place else is good enough. — John Steinbeck
Now by the time of writing, two weeks passed since I got home from my incredible stay over there. And I’m confident, that Mr. John Steinbeck is absolutely right with his quote. Let me explain why, by telling you my story.
It all started on a rainy Sunday, August 16th 2015 to be precise, when I lifted my piece of luggage onto the balance at the airport, which showed the small amount of about 11 kilograms.
Lovely. If you want to get more sneaky details about each individual day, check out my daily blogs! Start by the first. Yay. Oh about the daily blogs — That was the single and only goal I set myself for those 3 weeks. And I did it! Sometimes I had so many things to do that I had to write 3 blogs a day, but I eventually finished everyone of them I’m super proud about myself and really really happy that I did it! And that I’m now writing again — for this review! Yay.
Okay okay. Rather than going into every detail of my blog again, I’ll give a quick overview and mention some points which I never mentioned in the daily blogs. I guess.
Age
First of all, I’m now aware of the fact — that by the time of then and probably still today, I look like 18 years old. You seriously can’t imagine how many times I heard
Wait, what? You’re 20?!
At least once a day. Haha. But I’m fine with it, I don’t feel like I’d be already 20! Haha. Yay.
I think sometimes, I also act more like 18 years old. I mean, I could have let this new super cool friend named Olaf back in the Disney store, but where would be the fun then? He’s awesome, makes me happy and reminds me about this overwhelming experience.
Lalala. I just hugged him, by the way. Haha. Pure fluffiness. And I’m eating some of my last pretzel-flavored M&Ms right now. They are really good.
Food
In second place, during the whole three weeks, when we were strolling around in New York City we felt that we were always on the look for something. Something to eat. That may now sounds strange, because it’s NYC and there’s food like everywhere!
But, either it was this mainstream fast-food like McDonalds, KFC or something strange which looked way to suspicious. So we regularly ended up walking around a lot of blocks until we finally found something suitable to eat. Maybe thats the reason why I didn’t gain any weight on my trip. Haha. Because the things I ate were usually not that healthy.
The food in NY in general was lets say — okay. We haven’t been on the lookout for the best restaurants, therefore, we just took what we found. But on one of my last days, I got a recommendation from Mattia, a student from Milano, Italy. Thank you for that! It was about this one Italian restaurant, read more in my 20th daily blog. The food they served over there was super delicious and something else than just only pizza with pepper or burgers. Delicious.
Situations
Lets come to some events I’d like to mention here. They were either funny, strange or just awkward. Haha. First of all, when I was shopping in Abercrombie & Fitch there might have been a moment where I walked around with way to many pieces of clothing. So. A woman talked to me where she can find this and that item. Haha I really had to laugh about that, I actually felt a bit pleased — I mean the whole staff of Abercrombie & Fitch is like super good looking. Well. Haha.
The next moment was, when Rocio and I were on the way to take the helicopter trip when a guy from the left suddenly shouted to me
Are you Justin Bieber?
I haven’t heard that in a while, so I had to laugh about it. When I first started wearing my hair gelled to the top, everyone was like
“Omg you have the same haircut like Justin Bieber does! Do you try to be like him?”
Everytime when I started to get to know someone new, that question was asked for sure. But I never really cared about. I’m pretty happy that I didn’t listen to all those bad comments about my hair. I’m happy with my fabulous mane, so I don’t care about that.
Haha. I’m feeling most of the time like this lion over here.
So, lets go to my last mentionable moment. It was early in the night, the day when a lot of people left the campus, therefore, a Saturday. I wrote about it in Fridays blog, because it was early in the night. Anyway. I’ve been talking outside with Helen, feeling fabulous in my clothes. Haha. We were there, because it was her last day so for saying “See you”. And then suddenly this guy popped by, asking curiously to us
Hi! Are you like an actor or something?
I should have said yes. Haha that would have been really funny. But I didn’t. Well, but I still felt awesome afterwards. Like a push for my self-confidence, more about that later on.
Thats that, about those honorable moments. Yay. Lets go over to advertisement — or my experience with EF.
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It was January this year when I started with my research about Education First or just EF. I was completely overwhelmed about that movie.
I watched so many times. I think that movie — and the fact, that New York was the city I wanted to visit the most — made it easy for me to decide that I wanted to go there. So only a few days later I signed up for my three weeks trip! Yay.
Months passed and I was always super good informed about the current situation. Either by emails, a short phone call or by the information events which were located right in the city I live next to. Perfect. Don’t worry about that you don’t know whats the class you’ll get in or in which room you’ll get, just be excited about it and accept it as it is. I already made some friends before my trip over the MyEF platform, which is really great and super easy to use. There’s also an app for it, the best way to be aware of your class schedule when on campus.
When I finally arrived at the campus, I was really overwhelmed by the whole experience. It is a really huge space, fully filled with students from everywhere in the world. Everywhing went great, from the arrival in the US till the pre-booked airport transport, offered by EF. It’s expensive, but so you don’t have to worry about getting to the right place. Because I think it can be really horrible when you get lost on the first day.
After 2 days, we recognised, that the water in our bathtub wasn’t flushing down. To bad. So I eventually decided to go to the Dormitory Managing Office to tell them about our problem. It was somewhen in the morning when I told my story to the very lovely women over there. Later on that day — in the evening when I got to my room again — the problem was already solved and we were able to shower again.
About the room. My room was located in the St. John’s dormitory. I had to share it with 2 other people. Arthur from Turkey and Yas from Japan. Both of them were really easy to deal with, so we haven’t had any problems during those three weeks. The room was okay, it wasn’t that big — but as I didn’t spend a lot of time in there anyway, it wasn’t such a big deal. And we had our own bathroom including shower. That was quite okay. Because we had no AC in our room, there was this super loud fan. You get used to it really quickly, but in the first night — when you’re not as tired as I was in my first night — it might be annoying. To sum up, our room was fine. And it really could be worse. It now gets renovated, so there might be AC there, soon. If you have the possibility to choose a dormitory, go for Gaines. The rooms they have are really beautiful. They don’t come with a personal bathroom, but they are really huge and silent.
Food. Breakfast and Dinner is included in the package you purchase. It was okay. I missed the Swiss bread sometimes, but there were always fresh fruits and yoghurt, so I’ve been able to compromise that lack of bread pretty well. Although, there was bread. But only toast bread or bagels. I went for the bagels for a couple days, but I didn’t like them that much. Anyway. I often missed dinner. I only went there for about 3 times. Yes, I actually have been to New York City quite often, as you might already have seen in my blogs. Haha. So there would be BBQ-thursdays during summer, but I missed every single one. The three times I went there, food was okay, not bad. The dessert was always delicious, especially the apple pie.
The activities of EF were always well organised and that way you don’t have to worry about how to get there and so on. Therfore, I’d recommend going to the Yankee game with EF, when staying in EF NY. It might be more expensive than going by yourself, but the seats are always very good and you might get to know other students. Yay.
Self-Confidence
As I mentioned before, there was some change with my self-confidence. Before my trip, I was already self-confident when it goes about my job but not much further. I’ve always been influenced by others. If just anybody told me that they don’t like that or that, I probably wouldn’t do or wear that thing again. I was afraid. And well, in those three weeks, I had multiple situations where I felt great with what I did, with my choice. One I’ve already told you earlier this post. I mentioned another one in my daily blogs. It was during my last night in NYC. To sum it up, Rocio and I well, shouted a “Whoo”-sound in the middle of NYC. When I did my first one, I was completely closed afterwards, I tried to hide myself. But Rocio asked my this one question
Why are you hiding?
I haven’t been able to give her an answer. I asked myself the same question and came up with the fact, that I thought that people care, just with all the bad stuff. The reality is, people don’t care about who you are or what you do. Therefore, why should anybody care if you shout? Haha. No body cares! So I shouted again, fullfiled with self-confidence. And I can’t describe how great that moment felt for me. It was a moment in my life, where I left all those fears behind me and started to be more self-confident. Now, after two weeks, I’m still thinking about this moment almost everyday and — you might not expect that — I actually feel still more self-confident and therefore also happy!
I’ve recognized a lot of moments where I was asking myself if I really care about what other people think. I said NO to myself and started accepting the situation as it is, without the fears of beeing threated in a bad way or so.
Thank you, Rocio. That question in that moment probably helped me to get a happier life. If you’ve seen my video, you may have noticed that for the first part of NYC, I took a song called Shout Shout. Really suitable, actually. Yay.
Not just because of the part with my self-confidence push but also all the other tiny new experiences, this trip was the best of my life — so far. I was overwhelmed by the city, the people, the culture everyday. I actually can imagine to live in this city, maybe not forever, but for a while — why not! I really love the concept of this super huge park right in the city. I’m talking about Central Park, if it’s not obvious to you. Maybe to go for a run in the morning and for a picknick or a cycling tour in the evening. Sounds gorgeous, doesn’t it?
Fit
And by the way, when I already talk about walking. Here you can see my statistics of Google Fit, so if you go to New York, be prepared to walk — a lot. Haha. It’s a good way to compromise all the fast food you eat when you’re there and hopefully don’t gain any weight. Aaand as I mentioned before, I ate a lot of it. So, here are my statistics.
Thats a pretty decent amout of kilometers I walked over those three weeks. Thats cool. Yay.
Now we reached the moment where I don’t know what I should add more to this. But I also don’t want to end this capture — I won’t actually. It will go further than those three weeks. My experiences, impressions will lead my onto my future me. It was a really usefull experience, which I’ll never forget. I’m really proud of myself that I made this blog. And I thank you — mr or ms. reader, for all the support I got for this project! Love :) Then I guess I have nothing more to say than.. ENJOY! Enjoy whatever you’re doing at the moment, in 5 minutes — in your life. Enjoy every moment — because I’ll!
In love,
XO Yannick
