Welcome to Nazareth College!

Hello all!

Pittsford village is half way between Rochester and Campus of Nazareth College. It’s actually a little plaza-village full of stores, shops, companies and services. Clothes, shoes, accessories in one hand, restaurants, cafés, Dunkin Donuts on the other. Hairdressing salon, car wash, bank and of course Vegman’s. Finally a supermarket where raw, natural food can be bought. Vegman’s is a giant supermarket, and definitely its strength lies in its food. We found broccoli, onion, paprika and many other vegetables directly from farms. Eggs, meat, fruits and dairy-products were also natural, produced in the nearby regions. The apples here weren’t sliced in little pieces as in NYC, I could bite in real food, and that moment was priceless. We often frequented Vegman’s because its confiture and bakery section is very cool and there are perfect birthday cakes too. Vegetable chips amazed us, there were: alga, sweet potato, carrot, blue potato, beetroot and many other varieties. If someone hated vegetables, these crisps are ideal for establishing a closer relationship with vegetables. I regained my trust and hope in the idea that it's possible to live healthy in America.

Of course we spent long hours analyzing which beer, or chocolate to buy and bring home as souvenirs. Interestingly beer is packed in 0, 75 l cans, this is different from Europe. And warning! Bring with yourself your passport if you want to buy alcohol, because they really check whether are you more than 21, and a simple ID card from your home-country will not be enough (my experience).

Not only the beer, but everything is bigger: giant packs of croissants, chocolate packs double as big as I was used with at home, even cars are bigger, and food portions as well. It was interesting to experience this feeling of comfort and satisfaction. I felt like here for most people is always possible to eat and drink as much as they want (or more than that), to drive a very good car, to buy anything they desire. While living in Eastern-Europe I don’t feel like this frequently, but entering a shop or just walking down the streets reminds me of the fact that people are not having enough of anything, and life is full of lacks. The whole North-American experience highlighted that in general here people live a better-quality life. At least from the outside seems like this. But this of course raised a lot of further thoughts in me…

After arriving finally at Nazareth College (NAZ) Campus, we found ourselves in the middle of a middle-aged castle district. The style of the buildings was very beautiful, old from the outside. The universities, dorms, dining and sport halls were like any typical brick building from UK. Red and grey bricks mostly, small and narrow windows, vaulted roofs, trees, bushes and chipmunks, green alleys, huge green fields of lawn. The main building was just like a Scottish cold but majestic fortress. At least, from the outside seemed like this. But as we know, there's no good in judging something only from the outside (just like the high-quality life of the Americans mentioned previously). Computer rooms, iPads, apple, cinema room, tv room, fitness room, high-tech library… well these are those aspects which bring Nazareth College a modern and cool air.

The classical mixed with the modern just perfectly. I was enormously glad that they could maintain the outer aspect of the campus as it was in the old times, and didn’t change everything in a boring modern steel-glass combination.

On the first day just a Korean girl and the 3 of us arrived at Nazareth College. The other participants arrived the next days. Each of us lived in a single room, with a shared bathroom with one person. Our beds were a bit higher than European ones. Each bed had a ladder, quite hard to get used with this dangerous height at the beginning, but actually it’s not a bad idea, because this way the available space left under could be cleverlyused for luggage storage. There are some stereotypes about Americans that their general knowledge about the world is lower than in any other place, but I think if we talk about how to construct or design something to function good and make living easier, these guys know what to do.

The dorm was great, our RAs (host students who guided and entertained us) were very attentive and warm-hearted, so we went to sleep and get rid of the jetlag we had, and waited excitedly for the next day to come and wake up as fresh NAZ students.

P. s. : Sorry for the quality of the pictures, I’m not a professional photographer.

Thanks for reading, Dóra.

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