she’s from Cyprus, but has this habit of mimicking the British accent around British mine is what I want to do. Sure, people.) But we didn’t really it’s important to have those talk and it wasn’t until the degrees listed on a paper, but is next day that I met more of my it any different from me learning flatmates. I met Tom (Norway), about it on my own, on my own Simon (Sweden), and Stefania time and pleasure?” (Greece) in the kitchen that 7. What are the best and next day and that evening, they worst experiences you had invited me out for drinks at the nearest pub, Wetherspoons. meeting people? Throughout the same week, I a. Cody: I went to the doctor met all my flatmates- Aaditya with strep throat in February (India), Melina (Greece), and was giving my details to the Melanie (France), and Josh secretary. I still take a little time Beautiful architecture in Oxford. (China). We’re a close-knit to understand Czech, so she family and we do a lot of had to repeat some questions in things together and I wouldn’t trade them for the world. I don’t Czech for me. She got to “nationality” and I didn’t understand really have a worst stories of people I’ve met. the word she used, so she prompted me: “Russian? Ukrainian?” to which I responded in Czech, a bit puzzled: 8. What is the difference between education in America “American.” She was very surprised and said “What?! ... It’s versus education abroad? impossible to tell that from your accent.” The other patient in a. Lara: “I like to think there’s a lot of differences between the waiting room and I had a laugh about that. It was a proud the two. It’s not cheaper or more expensive than schools in moment. We also met two Serbs up in a cafe one night when I America. My tuition fee was 17,050 pounds or about $26,000 was out with three of my closest friends there. They were a little for the year. And that’s a difference in of itself. While most drunk and their English wasn’t great to begin with, and then grad schools in the US are at least two years or three, for US they started saying some homophobic things before they left. It students or just international students, we only have the option was a little uncomfortable for everyone involved.” of being full time students so we only get a year. For the first b. Lara: “I think the best story of people I’ve met would be semester (as for a Modern History major or any history major) meeting my flatmates. I’m a shy, introvert by nature, so it’s we take 3 classes, one of which is mandatory for our major and hard for me to be open and make friends. I first moved in on the other two are optional ones we can pick. At the end of the a Sunday and I hadn’t met any of my flatmates initially. I kept semester we write research papers for each class, and each to my room, organizing it, and then eventually checking out the paper is 4,000 words. We have a month to write them. Then we stores around my accommodation on my computer. I ventured start the second semester which is the same but with different downstairs to get a feel of the place and I ran into one of my classes. During this time period, not only must we read for our flatmates, Shelby (she’s from America as well), on the elevator classes (which are seminars of two hours length) and figure going down. Going back up I ran into another one, Maria. I our research ideas for those classes, we must start figuring out couldn’t tell where she was from, but I initially thought she was British because she had that slight accent (turns out that vABROAD continued on page 29 vABROAD continued from page 27 Keep The Holidays Merry – Hassle-Free Holiday Decorating • FREE Estimates • Exterior, Professional Holiday Lighting • Installation, Take Down, Storage • Commercial & Residential NATURESCAPING DESIGNS ( L A N D S C A P I N G | P R O P E R T Y C A R E | H O L I DAY D E C O R AT I N G ) CALL US TODAY 605.661.1205 • NATURESCAPINGDESIGNS.COM • LAURAWNSD@GMAIL.COM 28vHERVOICEvSEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2016