Hello!

My name is Larissa Rumiantzeff. I am a 26 year old Brazilian woman, with somewhat of a Russian heritage. In 2011, I went to Victoria BC, in Canada, in January. It was the most liberating experience of my life so far. Even thought I had already been an exchange Student in the United States, in 2002, and it was a life changing experience, this time I was in a different stage. This time, it was not about getting a chance to start anew and to know myself. It was not about running away from something either, like I tried to, at seventeen. This time, I was not a minor. There were no llamas, and the exchange program didn’t send me to a ranch. There was no wonderful second host family either, and no singing around happily to Disney songs, rafting trips or thanksgiving dinners in Portland either. Last time, it was about learning and experiencing things I never knew I liked. This time, it was about enjoying them. Not better, just different.

I still couldn’t drive (let’s say I had other priorities), but there are tons of busses in Victoria, and not the yellow school bus either. I’m talking about the grown up busses. There were also bars and pubs, and I could drink legally. There were no parents worrying about me, so long as I remembered to call my host mother and let her know if I was going to be home for dinner, and call my real mother in Brazil. Because I am an adult now. I got to explore.

I had promised to write a report about my trip, for my exchange program, to be published in the university website. But as I started writing, I felt like the report was getting bigger and bigger, and I had more and more things to say. How to comprise a whale watching experience in just one paragraph? How to describe the experience of hanging out with Koreans and Japanese in classroom every single day, in just one sentence? How to compile the best of Victoria in just a few words? It simply couldn’t be done. I did write the report, in the end, but I had to write a blog of my own as well.

As a chronically affected exchange student, or a professional traveler, this is my treatment. Just like Scarlett O’Hara found her strength in the red earth of Tara, mine is in traveling and writing. Just like at the time of the Great Navigations, I had to report what I saw in foreign lands. When all else fails, writing always makes me feel better. Plus I felt like I really got to know the city. So, this is the space to share with you my experience in Victoria.