{"id":11,"date":"2024-02-05T01:41:34","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T01:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blackmac\/?p=11"},"modified":"2024-02-05T01:41:34","modified_gmt":"2024-02-05T01:41:34","slug":"where-we-live-differs-but-our-love-for-travel-family-is-the-same","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blackmac\/2024\/02\/05\/where-we-live-differs-but-our-love-for-travel-family-is-the-same\/","title":{"rendered":"Where We Live Differs – But Our Love For Travel & Family Is The Same."},"content":{"rendered":"

For my entire life, I have grown up in the United States, primarily in the suburbs of Northern Virginia. When I was just two years old, my family moved from our home in Colorado to Virginia due to my father being relocated for work in the Air Force. Given the young age at which I moved, I have never considered Colorado to be my home. Home instead for me is Gainesville, Virginia, a suburban town roughly 30 miles from D.C.<\/p>\n

Gainesville, in my opinion, is the perfect mix of city and rural lifestyle. If one was to drive roughly fifteen to twenty minutes east, you\u2019d find skyscrapers, massive highways, and endless rush hour traffic. Whereas, if you drove the equal amount of time west, you\u2019d instead find cows, corns and endless pastures. As an individual who dislikes the chaos of city life but also needs to have a Chick-Fil-A (and other food\/shopping options) nearby, Gainesville provides a comfortable mix of the two realities.<\/p>\n

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While my family has established our roots in Gainesville, one of my family\u2019s favorite activities to do together is travel. As children, my family primarily traveled domestically, visiting various National Parks and tourist attractions. However, in recent years, we have expanded our travels to include international, such as countries in South America and in the Caribbean. Travel has always played an essential role in my life, not only because it exposes me to new experiences and sights, but also teaches me about other cultures and lifestyles of individuals in other parts of the world.<\/p>\n

Although I have traveled to and explored other states and nations, one region I have not yet explored is the Middle East. While my Arabic courses have exposed me to various cultures and nations within the Middle East, such as Jordan and Egypt, I have not had the opportunity to experience the region firsthand. Hence, I loved our interaction with the AUS students in Sharjah because it provided an opportunity to engage with university students from a different region of the world and to learn about their life experiences and interests and draw similarities and differences between the two cultures.<\/p>\n

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One similarity was our mutual love for travel. In our breakout room discussion, we each shared an object of significance with the group and explained why the object was important to us. In my breakout room, a few of us, including myself, showed pictures from a vacation or travel experience. One photo that particularly resonated with me was another individual\u2019s visual of Venice. As she displayed her photograph for the group, she explained how her family and her often travel to Venice, and how Venice brings her peace and comfort. This statement stood out to me because I too, associate travel with peace. When I travel, I feel a peace of mind and comfort, because travel provides an opportunity to escape the chaos and responsibilities of everyday life and to be able to explore and experience new adventures for a period of time.<\/p>\n

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Another key similarity was the importance of family. As students engaged in the breakout room, it was clear how in both cultures, family is a central aspect in our respective lives. For one student\u2019s significant item, she showed an heirloom from her grandmother \u2013 a cross necklace symbolic of her Catholicism background. Similarly, another student shared a coffee cup with her cat\u2019s image imprinted on the side, and explained how her cat is important to her and her family. Furthermore, as we discussed our university experience, specifically our studies away from home, we each mentioned how we miss our families, especially our mother\u2019s home-cooking. Through these conversations, the importance of family in each culture was depicted, as we each shared sentimental stories about experiences with family, favorite memories from home, and our love for home-cooked meals compared to meals provided by our respective cafeterias.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, as we discussed our families, one girl mentioned how her family is considered a founding family in her town in Jordan. Unfamiliar with this concept, since it is not typical in my hometown for families to be classified as \u201cfounding families,\u201d I was intrigued to learn that as a founding family, every street in her town is named after one of her family members. This idea is fascinating to me, as I imagine what it would be like to drive through Gainesville and see road signs with my name as well as my family members\u2019 names on the signs rather than random names such as \u201cTall Timber\u201d or \u201cRaspberry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, our initial conversations with the students of the AUS revealed many similarities but also a few differences between our cultures and respective lives. As an individual who loves to learn about other people and their experiences, I enjoyed these conversations because it shed light on how other university students in different regions of the world live and what their college experiences are like. With that said, I am eager for future interactions to further get to know the AUS students in Sharjah and interact with th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For my entire life, I have grown up in the United States, primarily in the suburbs of Northern Virginia. When I was just two years old, my family moved from our home in Colorado to Virginia due to my father being relocated for work in the Air Force. Given the young age at which I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5454,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blackmac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blackmac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blackmac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blackmac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5454"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blackmac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blackmac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blackmac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blackmac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blackmac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}