I’ve been a believer of manifestation for many years, and I know it is real because this experience cemented this belief for me. My whole college career, I’ve known that at some point I would study abroad. As a Peace and Global Studies and Political Science dual major, I have a Capstone credit to fulfill and studying abroad checked this off. When I went to speak with my department chair, Dr. Popescu, she brought up the Netherlands and told me she had done her sabbatical there. She raved about this city called the Hague- the city of peace and justice. I was interested and wanted to go, so I made a folder in my phone of pictures of what I wanted to see when I went there in the future, similar to a vision board. The folder was full of picturesque canals, tulip fields, clogs, windmills and bikes etc.. This journey started in the Fall semester in 2019, when I went to a meeting for the Le Moyne study abroad programs. Flash forward to two years later, we are still in the midst of a pandemic. Things were hectic with the application process but I held on to hope, and as luck would have it I was on a plane out to Amsterdam on January 31st of 2022.
Over the next six months, I would learn what it was like to live alone in a foreign country. To say I was alone would be a stretch though, because I had Hasina, who as it turned out, was also going to the Netherlands from Le Moyne. We lived in different apartments in the same building, but up until that point in my life I had never lived alone. Where I stayed in the Hague was easy enough to settle into. My flat was a minute walk away from a canal, and a twenty minute walk from Dutch parliament. I was in the city center and I don’t take that for granted because it really immersed me into the culture.
During my time in the Netherlands, I visited many of the cities in the country that I would consider to be underrated, in comparison to the hype that Amsterdam gets. Leiden, Zaandam, Haarlem and Rotterdam are my personal favorites for those who do plan to go. In these cities, I saw lots of culture, art and architecture- not to mention the people who are wonderful. The Dutch are not too far off from New Yorkers in that they aren’t ones to mince words- they are direct people. Although, the Dutch do not have the temperament of the average New Yorker. I enjoyed my time among them, they are kind people.
While the sights I saw there were beautiful, it was the people who really made the experience what it was, for me. Hasina has become something akin to family for me. It’s funny because I hardly knew anything about her when we arrived in the Netherlands. Though all we had was each other and I’m so grateful that we got to share our experience abroad. It was helpful to have a sense of comfort in a person, she was a little slice of home that I had needed whenever I would get homesick. As for the new friends I made, let’s just say I have a variety of countries to visit in the future. Some of them may even be reading this blog from their home countries- Finland, Brazil, Georgia, Taiwan, England and the list goes on. The thing is, when you pull a group of 20-23 year olds of different ethnicities and nationalities, you are bound to have cultural fusion. Through meeting new people and experiencing different cultures, it has broadened my own horizons. The experience as a whole has had a huge impact on how I see the world. I am not a different person from who I was when I left New York in January, but I do feel as though I have gained a new perspective.
I have a piece of advice for anyone in college with the opportunity to go abroad- do it! It doesn’t hurt to get out there, if anything it will make you a more global citizen and a better version of yourself in general. Most importantly, the experience made me learn more about who I am. That was a chance for me to be on my own and push myself to limits I did not know I could reach. At the start of the experience I questioned whether this would be something that I could actually go through with. I now know not to underestimate myself, and in the process of learning this, I have made friendships and memories to last me a lifetime.
Her trip to the Netherlands was funded in part by The O’Leary International Travel Grants Program, which provides financial awards of up to $2,000 to help offset travel costs for students in Le Moyne’s College of Arts and Sciences participating in study abroad programs. This grant program is administered by the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences and funded by a gift from the estate of Dr. Harriet L. O’Leary, professor emerita of Foreign Languages and Literatures.