IT’S nice to study abroad once in a while. If you are a kid and your parents travel a lot like being a diplomat, then you will have the opportunity to travel abroad and study there and bask at the many beautiful surroundings in other countries that you have gone. Let’s start off with Spain. If you come from a place such as Madrid, it’s nice to go to be here comfortable in your home country but during summer, it’s nice to go to another exotic place such as Palma del Mallorca at the Balearic Islands. The Balearic Islands are located right in the middle of the Mediterranean and during your summer vacation, you can really have a jolly good time consuming all the seafood that you can imagine such as redfish, grouper, lobsters, crabs, shrimps or mussels.

In your third grade, if your parents are assigned in Japan, you will have the experience of donning a micro-mini skirt as the bottom half of your uniform. That certainly sounds weird but that’s how it is in Japan. You will also have the opportunity to learn Niponggo and learn the Japanese characters. You will also note that their religion there is not like your own Roman Catholic upbringing but they believe in nature spirits in a faith called Shinto. In fact, they adore trees and they are the most environmental-friendly people on the planet. Whereas in Spain you’ll enjoy a robust temperature of up to 18 degrees Celsius during summer, in Japan you’ll endure chilling temperatures of up to -5 degrees Celsius during winter. But this is also an opportune time to learn skiing and Japan has a string of schools catered for wintry sports. It’s nice to enjoy skiing as early as possible and I was trained skiing at an early age of ten. I also liked the nice food in Japan such as oden, sashimi and miso. I was also surprised that the Japanese McDonald’s were serving rice balls.

After my stint in Japan, I then went into high school in Manila. In Manila, I was able to partake of purely Filipino dishes like fish paste, sweet sticky rice cakes, and whole roasted pork and boiled chicken fetuses. Believe me, they do taste yummy. I was also able to learn Tagalog, their national language and even the regional languages such as Cebuano and Maranao. I was also able to go to various places such as whitewater rafting in Cagayan de Oro City, scuba diving in Palawan, skim boarding in Siargao and sun tanning in Boracay.

From Manila, I went to Montreal where I took up a degree in international relations at the Universite de Montreal. It is there where I learned both French and English intensively and I was able to partake too of some of Montreal’s finest smoked ham which I have learned is a passion among the Jewish community here. It was also during my studies here that I was able to travel abroad back in Europe in my continent of origin particularly in France where I was able to meet quite a few lovely people there.