My Hillsider Essay
I sent this artile to the Hillsider, a community paper here in Duluth. Uunahan ko na sila, hehe :)
From Flipflops to Mukluks
A UMD international student's close encounters of the Duluth kind
by N.B. Vizcarra
IN MY dreams I wear flipflops. All my capiz windows are wide open and a balmy breeze slips in with the scent of ripe mangoes. Outside in the garden I discover--to my utter delight--a long table laden with grilled seafood, steaming white milagrosa rice and various clay pots of stews. The whole family is there and my godfather is roasting a pig. Then I think I hear a cell phone ringing. I look under the food table where the sound is coming from and under there I see two men fully dressed in a Columbia Artic Wind jackets, snow pants and mukluks. "This is Click and Clack, good morning!" they croak and hand me my noisy alarm clock.
MUK-WHAT??!..These are mukluks.
The Steger brand is popular in Duluth.
My beloved flipflops are somewhat useless where I really am right now. I am in Duluth, Minnesota and am a member of the small population of people here called "the international students." I also belong to an even smaller subset that comes from countries with climates totally opposite to that of the North Land. You will easily recognize us by the amount of clothes and layers we wear. Much too much for North American standards and ridiculously warm for hardcore Duluthian standards. But just right for us. We are the folks from the lands of monsoon rains, tropical forests, great sandy deserts and absolutely no snow. Extra layers are to us as dry suits are to cold-water divers.
Another Planet
To me, coming to Duluth for graduate studies has been somewhat like visiting another planet. It is just so different from the Philippines, my homeland. I had to adjust to things as basic as the way I breath, to things as trivial as the challenge to keep my hair from looking so limp and flat.
For example, I didn't know that in minus 20 degrees Celsius, it was advisable to warm your breath in your mouth before inhaling it. Like a fish learning to breath out of water, I had a few panicky moments of coughing and gasping in my first experience of extreme cold. Not to mention the weird sensation of having tiny ice crystals forming in my nostrils.
It also took a while to develop my "ice legs". Many days I gingerly waddled like a duck on icy sidewalks while locals zipped by or briskly trudged past me. Walking on icy sidewalks is a skill that develops over time, I was told, and I'm proud to say I wear the bruises on my bum with great pride. At the same time I am on the look out for a pair of boots with steel pins on the bottom. I believe in paying my dues, but I don't like being late for class.
Living in Duluth has also resulted in a different, shall we say, beauty regimen for me. Back home, I had to have my hair chemically straightened to keep the humidity from making it rise like dough. Now, it is as flat as Iowa. So I use volumizing shampoos and mousse. And let's not forget the globs and globs of body butter I need to use to keep my skin from drying up like beef jerky. I miss the $8 full-body massages back home. The $3 haircuts and the $1 manicures and pedicures. Now I pluck my own eyebrows and don't bother to paint my nails (my hands are always in gloves anyway). I also have to wait a while before saving enough money to get a sacral cranial massage from the nuns at St. Scholastica.
Same Sun, Different Sky
Nevertheless, I have made it a point to try embrace Duluth life to make my stay here more comfortable. I have learned how to cross-country ski, pack a quality snowball, make a snow angel, will willingly shovel snow off our sidewalk, and have even gone snowshoeing at night somewhere near Spirit Mountain. I have gone sea kayaking in Lake Superior, sang in the Christmas concert with the Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra Chorus, gone brisk walking along the Lake Shore and had a couple of slices of Betty's Pies up at Two Harbors. I narrowly escaped a Lutefisk feed (a "requirement" for graduate students of the UMD Environmental Education program) but I contribute to local business by munching on burgers and drinking root beer at Fitgers on some Friday evenings and feasting on grilled salmon at Sarah's Table once in a while. I shop at the Whole Foods Coop. My knitted hat is locally made. I have never been "bridged," but I am open to the experience!
There are also some aspects of Duluth that have won me over. I love how enchantingly different a Duluth sunset is to my Manila Bay sunset. Whereas that time of the day is a blaze of orange, yellow and red back home, here it is a misty canvas of pastel pinks, baby blues and lavender. I have fallen in love with ice crystals and their delicate beauty. Lake Superior from the corner of East 8th Street and 19th Avenue looks like the Visayan Sea in my favorite seaside town of Dumaguete in the Philippines.
My fellow international students Hanaa Al-Khansa from Malaysia and Keegan Vas from Kuwait say seeing the Aurora Borealis is one of the most beautiful things they have seen while living in Duluth.
"It was like it had so many colorful coats, it kept changing into new ones and absolutely did not know what to wear," was how Hanaa described the shimmering spectacle. Hanaa also likes autumn in Duluth when the leaves change color. Keegan likes the blue glacial color that ice on Lake Superior sometimes displays.
I love the Northern Lights too. I must confess, I never thought I would see it in my lifetime. But then again, I never thought I would come to Duluth and get up close and personal to its distinctly northland spunk.
From Flipflops to Mukluks
A UMD international student's close encounters of the Duluth kind
by N.B. Vizcarra
IN MY dreams I wear flipflops. All my capiz windows are wide open and a balmy breeze slips in with the scent of ripe mangoes. Outside in the garden I discover--to my utter delight--a long table laden with grilled seafood, steaming white milagrosa rice and various clay pots of stews. The whole family is there and my godfather is roasting a pig. Then I think I hear a cell phone ringing. I look under the food table where the sound is coming from and under there I see two men fully dressed in a Columbia Artic Wind jackets, snow pants and mukluks. "This is Click and Clack, good morning!" they croak and hand me my noisy alarm clock.
MUK-WHAT??!..These are mukluks.
The Steger brand is popular in Duluth.
My beloved flipflops are somewhat useless where I really am right now. I am in Duluth, Minnesota and am a member of the small population of people here called "the international students." I also belong to an even smaller subset that comes from countries with climates totally opposite to that of the North Land. You will easily recognize us by the amount of clothes and layers we wear. Much too much for North American standards and ridiculously warm for hardcore Duluthian standards. But just right for us. We are the folks from the lands of monsoon rains, tropical forests, great sandy deserts and absolutely no snow. Extra layers are to us as dry suits are to cold-water divers.
Another Planet
To me, coming to Duluth for graduate studies has been somewhat like visiting another planet. It is just so different from the Philippines, my homeland. I had to adjust to things as basic as the way I breath, to things as trivial as the challenge to keep my hair from looking so limp and flat.
For example, I didn't know that in minus 20 degrees Celsius, it was advisable to warm your breath in your mouth before inhaling it. Like a fish learning to breath out of water, I had a few panicky moments of coughing and gasping in my first experience of extreme cold. Not to mention the weird sensation of having tiny ice crystals forming in my nostrils.
It also took a while to develop my "ice legs". Many days I gingerly waddled like a duck on icy sidewalks while locals zipped by or briskly trudged past me. Walking on icy sidewalks is a skill that develops over time, I was told, and I'm proud to say I wear the bruises on my bum with great pride. At the same time I am on the look out for a pair of boots with steel pins on the bottom. I believe in paying my dues, but I don't like being late for class.
Living in Duluth has also resulted in a different, shall we say, beauty regimen for me. Back home, I had to have my hair chemically straightened to keep the humidity from making it rise like dough. Now, it is as flat as Iowa. So I use volumizing shampoos and mousse. And let's not forget the globs and globs of body butter I need to use to keep my skin from drying up like beef jerky. I miss the $8 full-body massages back home. The $3 haircuts and the $1 manicures and pedicures. Now I pluck my own eyebrows and don't bother to paint my nails (my hands are always in gloves anyway). I also have to wait a while before saving enough money to get a sacral cranial massage from the nuns at St. Scholastica.
Same Sun, Different Sky
Nevertheless, I have made it a point to try embrace Duluth life to make my stay here more comfortable. I have learned how to cross-country ski, pack a quality snowball, make a snow angel, will willingly shovel snow off our sidewalk, and have even gone snowshoeing at night somewhere near Spirit Mountain. I have gone sea kayaking in Lake Superior, sang in the Christmas concert with the Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra Chorus, gone brisk walking along the Lake Shore and had a couple of slices of Betty's Pies up at Two Harbors. I narrowly escaped a Lutefisk feed (a "requirement" for graduate students of the UMD Environmental Education program) but I contribute to local business by munching on burgers and drinking root beer at Fitgers on some Friday evenings and feasting on grilled salmon at Sarah's Table once in a while. I shop at the Whole Foods Coop. My knitted hat is locally made. I have never been "bridged," but I am open to the experience!
There are also some aspects of Duluth that have won me over. I love how enchantingly different a Duluth sunset is to my Manila Bay sunset. Whereas that time of the day is a blaze of orange, yellow and red back home, here it is a misty canvas of pastel pinks, baby blues and lavender. I have fallen in love with ice crystals and their delicate beauty. Lake Superior from the corner of East 8th Street and 19th Avenue looks like the Visayan Sea in my favorite seaside town of Dumaguete in the Philippines.
My fellow international students Hanaa Al-Khansa from Malaysia and Keegan Vas from Kuwait say seeing the Aurora Borealis is one of the most beautiful things they have seen while living in Duluth.
"It was like it had so many colorful coats, it kept changing into new ones and absolutely did not know what to wear," was how Hanaa described the shimmering spectacle. Hanaa also likes autumn in Duluth when the leaves change color. Keegan likes the blue glacial color that ice on Lake Superior sometimes displays.
I love the Northern Lights too. I must confess, I never thought I would see it in my lifetime. But then again, I never thought I would come to Duluth and get up close and personal to its distinctly northland spunk.
posted by Natasha Vizcarra at 9:05 PM
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