I think people have different concepts of what home is and where their home should be. Living in Iceland for half a year has made me realise a lot about what I call home in Singapore. This is something I expected to learn on exchange but maybe not to such an extent.
Being overseas, managing everything by yourselves including the groceries, your laundry, your meals, your homework without your family beside you can really be a very challenging thing. Coming from a generation of youths who grew up in the 90s, I believe we have been extremely fortunate to have been able to grow up in Singapore.
Firstly, every meal we eat at home comes with at least 2 - 3 dishes, complementing rice. This is something that I find rare in the meals of other exchange students. In order to save money, some of them simply eat pasta with sauce, with no ingredients or just bread for a meal. Of course, they do have extravagant meals too but I'm just saying that we have seen them eating simple meals a lot.
Secondly, living with other people creates disagreements sometimes especially when some housemates don't clean the dishes properly or don't ask for permission when they take your food or when they just simply exclude themselves from cleaning the house. This is extremely annoying but we never have to worry about this back at home when someone else takes care of everything and everything is shared. Maybe this has taught me to clean dishes more properly so that I don't annoy others too! This has probably also taught me that maybe the next time I take out the vacuum cleaner at home, I will make it a point to vacuum the whole house while I'm at it.
Thirdly, laundry! In Singapore, whenever our clothes are dirty, we just throw everything into the washing machine, throw in some detergent, wait for everything to be washed and then simply hang them out to dry. In many countries such as Iceland, the washing machines are not cold wash and therefore everyone must make it a point to separate their light-coloured clothing from dark-coloured ones, EVEN if you have washed them a thousand times before. This was something I learned too late when we were trying to save money and time and wash everything in one load. Also, the dryer shrank my jacket. ):
Fourth, groceries! Every time we buy groceries in Singapore, most of the produce is fresh and we have so much variety, with so much convenience with at least one mama-shop in our estate! In Iceland, the cheapest supermarket is 30 minutes away. To get there, we have to drive. Secondly, we must always plan our shopping date because 22 exchange students share just one car. Furthermore, we need to ration our supplies and always make sure we buy the food with the furthest expiry date because we can't afford to go shopping all the time. This week, the school car broke down and so nobody could buy any groceries or go out on any day trips.
Lastly, the weather is extremely unpredictable! In Singapore, nobody bothers to check weather forecasts and some of us just bring small brollies out in our handbags. In Iceland, nature rules. We made the mistake of not checking the weather forecast for our weekend trip and 10 of us had to pay for damages to the car because we were involved in 2 sandstorms and extremely high-speed winds. We were also evacuated to a nearby kindergarten and we couldn't make it back on time to return the car because the roads were closed.
So I guess I can say I've learnt a lot from Iceland so far. Hopefully my road trip at the end of the semester will be safer yet more exciting! :D
