In my 'Music (I am an audiophile)' post, I mentioned having multiple international encounters. After saying that, an inevitable rush of sweet and sometimes bittersweet memories overcame me, and I felt like maybe I should ventilate a little.
For starters, I have not been to many places in the world, but I have met residents of countries all over the world.
Allow me to explain: I have visited only Canada (but about 30 times), France, Belgium, and England. However, I have met people from and living in Russia, Denmark, Mexico, Italy, France, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Australia, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Colombia, New Zealand, Japan, the Dominican Republic, and Brazil.
The primary reason for this lies in my fluency in French.
One summer, I had attended an immersion program in Canada to learn French. The program was located in Stanstead, a small-ish town on the Canadian-American border. I mean, it was literally on the border-- half the town was in the U.S.A. and half the town was in Canada (there was a security gate in the center on the border), on the Stanstead College campus. This program was an international program that taught both French and English. So, respectively, there were Francophones and Anglophones in attendance.
The program also allowed foreign students learning English from other countries, though, so students from as far as the other side of the world were attending, too. This is how I met all those international folks.
The program was amazing, it worked so well, I went from not being able to say practically anything in French to someone who could practically teach it (most of it).
But anyway, yeah. My closest friends there were a few Asians (one Korean, one Taiwanese, one Japanese, four Chinese), a few Europeans/North Americans (one Russian, one Italian, one German, two Canadians, three Americans), and a few South/Central Americans (four Mexicans, one Colombian, one Dominican).
It was super fun and a great experience, if any of you are interested in French immersion programs located in Canada.
I've also physically visited France, Belgium, and England, though, like I said earlier.
Belgium truly has the best waffles.
The Parisian Metro is DA BOMB.
And the graffiti in Paris and London is absolutely beautiful.
And the street artists in Brugge, Montmartre, London, et cetera are quite good (most of them, anyway).
French food is overrated (just so you know).
But, anyway, the program was really good and really awesome, and there were so many peoples and languages, there, there were Russians, Germans, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese, Africans, Mexicans, Colombians, Ecuadorians, Italians, French, Americans, Canadians, Portuguese, Brazilians, Dominicans, et cetera.
The difficult part about the program, though, was that 30% of the student body knew English and the other 70% was learning English, so it was very hard to make friends, especially with the foreigners who knew neither French nor English (I got along okay, though).
