This weekend we traveled as a group to several locations around Panama. Between these excursions and my experiences in Panama City, I have learned a lot about the language barrier. More specifically, I have discovered that how Panamanians respond to those who don’t know Spanish is very different from how people in the United States respond to individuals who don’t know English. Overall, I have noticed that the people here in Panama are much more understanding and willing to help those who struggle with the native language.

One example that comes to mind when I think about this from a North American standpoint, I think of a situation that occurred in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that made national news. The owner of Geno’s Cheese Steaks refused service to individuals who did not order a cheese steak in English. While this seems like a simple situation, it has a meaning from deeper than what it appears to be on the surface. It shows that North Americans are far less tolerant of people who don’t know the native language, in our case, English.

To compare this idea to Panamanian culture I think about the conversations I have had the last few days. At restaurants, servers have been extremely patient with me in terms of getting my order correct and helping me learn the words in Spanish. For example, I really don’t like onions so to order my food without onions I now understand I just have to say sin sebolla (without onions). I was able to pick up on this quickly because the people have been so helpful. During our two most recent excursions the Panamanians have been really understanding and have taken their time explaining things to us to make sure we understand. While this was not something I previously knew about Panamanian culture, it doesn’t come as a complete surprise. Panamanian culture is built around relationships and helping others, even complete strangers. Thus, it is not hard to believe that Panamanians are far more tolerant than North Americans when it comes to language barriers.

– AJ Bucci

Yesterday, a group of us decided to go explore the city. Early on we decided to try to walk to the coast line to take some pictures. Since we had no idea where we were going or how to get there, we had to ask for directions many times along the way. This is when I reinforced something I had learned early on about Panamanian culture. I quickly discovered that people were very friendly and willing to help.

The next thing I noticed was the general charm that Panama City offered. Here you can find anything from an old restaurant to a brand new sky scraper. We even saw a building with a twist design. I had never seen anything quite like it before. When we finally made it to the coast it did not disappoint as we took some beautiful pictures.

While the people and the buildings were great, they did not provide the most valuable lesson on this little excursion. What I learned most was what it feels like to be a foreigner in someone else’s country. As we walked around the city many people stared and even pointed at us, because we truly were foreigner visiting their country. Though this may seem simple, it really was a valuable lesson. I was, for basically the first time in my life, able to put myself in the shoes of those who immigrate or simply visit the US from other foreign countries. Because of this experience, I have gained a greater respect and understanding for what foreigners experience when they come to the US.

– AJ Bucci

There are two types of colleges in France; there are grand écoles and universités. The universités are public and very affordable. I’ve heard that it costs a 1000 Euros ($1300 to $1400 depending on exchange rates) or less to attend a université for a whole year. The grand école students look down upon the université students because they feel that their more expensive school is better. I think there is some merit to this because the grand écoles are ranked higher than the universités. As one would expect, a better school comes with a bigger price tag. I’m not sure if the pricing is similar for all grand écoles, but Bordeaux École de Management, a.k.a. BEM, is a private school and the students pay 8000 Euros ($10400 to $11200) per year.
The structure of schooling at BeM is quite different from anything in the U.S. and I hear it’s even different from other schools in France. This structure might be changing due to the merger of BEM with another private school. The current structure goes as follows. The school year is divided into ten sequences, four from September to December and six from January to June. Each sequence lasts three weeks and you can only take one class per sequence. For an exchange student this setup is ideal, but I don’t think I would like it for U of L. In the three week sequence you have 45 hours of class time, but it is not split evenly between the weeks or days. It is purely up to your professors to decide how the class will be divided. I say professors because you typically have more than one for each class; it tends to be split between three professors. You could have 27 hours one week, 12 hours the next week, and only 6 hours the last week; with the final exam usually on the Friday of the third week. Now there are positives and negatives to this set up. On the negative side you can have 6 hours of class a day for four out of five days on those heavy weeks. On the positive side, when they load up the hours in one week you usually get several days off on the next week. There have been times where I would have off from Wednesday of the second week to Tuesday of the third week. Another great thing about having the sequence set up is that with only 10 possible sequences there tends to be many one week breaks throughout the school year, especially during the spring. I was there for four sequences from January to April and in that four month period I had four one week breaks.
If you decide to go to BEM, I hope that they will have fixed the one issue that seemed to bother all exchange students, their wifi or lack thereof. They do have free wifi for all students to use, but the problem is that it doesn’t work very well. It seems that their wireless routers cannot handle heavy traffic, because it seems to work fine in areas where there are many students on computers. For the most part, I stopped carry my laptop to school because the wifi never seemed to work. One professor even said once “if you have wifi you should try to download the document I posted.” It’s funny that even the faculty knows the wifi is bad. I’ve also had professors try to pull up web pages during class and not be able to. The worst is when a professor assigns a group presentation early in the day before lunch and you have to work on it during the day to be presented later in the same day, and you have trouble researching the material needed to do the presentation.
All in all I really enjoyed BEM and the wifi is the only complaint that I have. I would definitely recommend going there for your study abroad experience.

If you come to Bordeaux, make sure you do all of your shopping early. I really had a hard time getting used to how early everything closes. All of the Grocery stores close no later than 10pm and most aren’t open on Sundays, except for a few which close by 1pm. The retail stores close by 8pm or earlier every night. Whatever you do, do not get hungry late at night. I have only found one place to be open past midnight that serves food and it is called Royale. It is located just to the east of Place de la Victoire on Cours de la Marne. It’s not like in the US where you have many 24 hour fast food restaurants and some 24 hour grocery stores as well. You can sometimes find an epicerie, which is same as a corner store, that’s open on Sundays and sometimes find one open late but they are few and far between.
Another thing that I had to get used to, was how specialized all of the stores are. Your neighborhood markets only stock, food, alcohol, toiletries, and kitchen and bathroom supplies. You can get bread in the market but if you want fresh, good, real French bread you have to go to the boulangerie. A boulangerie is literally a bakery, but they specialize in bread, bread, more bread, and a few pastries and sandwiches as well. You can also find pastries and chocolate at the market, but they will not be as good as the ones from the patisserie or the chocolaterie. For those of you who smoke, you can only buy cigarettes at specialty shops/cafes called Tabac stores and they are not open on Sunday, so plan ahead. Tabac stores have red diamond shaped signs and they also sell lottery tickets, stamps, newspapers, and metro tickets.
There are exceptions to many rules, and Auchan is the French exception. Auchan is similar to a Target or maybe even Walmart. They have almost everything except otc medicine, Tabaco, and maybe one or two other things I’m forgetting. There is an Auchan in downtown Bordeaux near the Meriadeck stop of Tram line A. Auchan and a few other markets don’t provide free disposable bags for your groceries. You have to bring your own bags to these markets, or buy the reusable grocery bags that the store sells.
If you have a cough or maybe an upset stomach you cannot go down to the market for cough syrup or Pepto. You have to go to the Pharmacie for anything related to medicine, and be prepared because it seems that they are ALWAYS busy!