finance

When studying abroad a lot of people think about the amount of money that they would have to spend while away. It is not an easy decision to make, and it sure is not cheap to study abroad. It also depends a lot on your program, if they would allow you to get a campus employment job or if you would have to finance everything yourself.
One good thing about Saint Lawrence Program in France is that the directors try to find as many jobs as possible to help students earn some money, and thus enjoy the city. Program also offers a cultural reimbursement up to 100 euros if you go to theater, museum or see a French movie. This is very encouraging when it comes to experiencing the culture and learning more about the country.
When going to France, you need be prepared for a price shock, especially if you study in Paris. It is very expensive; a small cup of coffee might be as much as 3 dollars. Students have a lot of advantages in France. Almost every museum, famous monument, or cinema offers a 50% discount for students. It is very nice to see how they understand that students do not have thick wallets.
One should also know that euro-dollar exchange rate changes all the time. Sometimes a 100 euros will be 140 dollars, while the other week it might be 120 euros.
It is very important to pay attention to many important factors while studying abroad. You need to spend some quality time with people you know and be open. Making new friends, and especially the ones from different countries, is fun and helps you to understand the cultural differences in the world.

Friends and advices

One important thing while studying abroad is to make some friends. Your friends and you can have a blast if you know how to use the resources that a place where you are studying abroad offers you. Many articles say that when studying abroad students should not just spend weekends on trains and travel. Studying abroad is about breaking out and learning about culture. If you escape from the place every weekend, then you will never be able to do so.
If you stay over the weekend, you can learn about your host family's life over the weekend when they are not working. I can tell that it is very important from my own experience.  I have traveled maybe two weekends and the rest I spent with my host family, I have seen, for example, that my host family likes to go to the cinema or theater over the weekend. If it is nice outside, we would all be in the garden reading books or studying for the next week.
It also depends oh how open your host family is. Some host families accept students like somebody who is part of their family, while the others like to have some distance. It is important to remember that every beginning is hard. It takes a while til you and your host family become completely open to each other. It is also important that one engages him/herself into their lives and understands the cultural differences. Sometimes it might take longer than you would expect, but that is why we all study abroad; to learn something new and to expand our skills on solving problems.

Host family-crucial!

I would honestly say that host family is definitely one of the crucial things when you are abroad and you really want to have the full experience and culture. I was lucky enough to get the best family  you can actually ever imagine. Our relationship is not student-host, I would say that we have something that is just way beyond that and that makes me feel like I take part in their life :).
I was also lucky enough to have 3 great host brothers. I did not really  hang around a lot with the third one who lives in Paris but I have met him twice, once while I was in Paris and the second time when he was here for my birthday. I love them all like they are my real brothers. I spend most of my time with the youngest one who is just awesome, actually my whole group is in love with him, although most of them did not even meet him.

My host parents are awesome too! I love our little celebration "the end of the week" every Friday before dinner when we take some alcohol and just chill and talk for hours. After that I would usually go out and come back sometime in the morning, or would just stay and talk to my host brothers, maybe even drink with them. We also go to theater or cinema every week at least once. I just love being asked if I understood everything in the movie. I hope it just stays like this until June :)

It has been long

I originally created this blog so I can actually have some memories left from France, but I have been here for more than two months and this is the first time that I am writing about it. We are 17, pretty cool group with some exceptions but you know, those always exist. I am actually very happy to be back in Europe. I missed this culture of having coffee for hours, talking and just everything being slower than it usually is in the States.
I had two awesome weeks on the country side. My host family there was just awesome, and the host siblings were just really cool.We lived on a farm that had a cheese factory and it could not be any better for me beacuse I love cheese and everything about it. Through those two weeks I slept a lot beacuse I was still very tired after Middlebury that I had to have some kind of vacation.
Now I am in Rouen, staying with an awesome host family and host brothers who are just like my brothers. I have also made a decision to stay a year in France and I am very excited about it. It might be a bitch to take economics courses in French, but people did it before and I am pretty sure that I can do it too.It is great that we have done all the traveling with the program for this semester, we basically spend half of this month in some other places and that has just made us all very tired.
Today is just another normal rainy day here in Normandie. Leslie and Ariel are with me since my family left to Paris for the night but I had a lot of fun yesterday. I hope it does not get cold like at SLU, that would not make me happy at all!