Helen Hutchens
Biking in the Netherlands
Bikes. Bikes are everywhere in the Netherlands, and to me they have defined my experience here. Before I had come here, I hadn’t biked for years, and then only on the country road in my neighborhood. In the past week, I have biked through Dutch cities in all kinds of weather (sun, rain, snow, ice, [...]
Europa, ich komme gleich.
On Friday, I leave for Europe. I will be leaving Lafayette, my friends, and my family for half a year. While that seems like a long time, I still feel like I was in China yesterday, and I know the time will fly again this semester. My trip to Europe will be my fourth time [...]
Inaugural Festivities
The Capitol Building at dawn is one of the most beautiful buildings I have seen, even when the lawn is overrun by people arriving early for President Barack Obama’s second Inauguration. My family went down to the inauguration thanks to a generous donation from Peter Jacoby ’81. We entered into a contest for Lafayette [...]
Eating at a Home Away From Home
One of the joys of traveling is the ability to enjoy a new cuisine. In America, we pride ourselves on having food from many cultures from around the world, but it is never comparable to the real foreign cuisine. In China, I learned what my Chinese friends had already described to me. There are big [...]
Xi’an: An Ancient City of China
My summer is like the movie Inception. I keep falling deeper into travels and farther away from my reality at Lafayette. I will make my way back, but Xi’an is the farthest I will go. From Easton to Lancaster to Conifer to Dalian and finally to Xi’an, I have traveled around the world and back [...]
Chinese Cultural Immersion
After three wonderful weeks in Colorado, Helen and I are continuing our BOMA project. We came to my home, Dalian, China! We took an airplane from Denver to Los Angeles then to Seoul and then finally to Dalian. The airplane from Denver to Los Angeles was three hours late. We were running late for [...]
Dalian: a Modern City of China
Sometimes I forget that I am in China. Dalian feels western to me from the architecture to the cars on the street to the shops that I see. The fact that I am in a city often feels like a bigger difference to me than the fact that I am halfway around the world from [...]
If American Kids Finished Digging a Hole to China
They are all asleep! I thought that Jason was going to take me to the best high school in his city. I was never expecting to find all the students sitting in the dark with their heads down and sleeping at one o’clock in the afternoon. I haven’t had nap-time since first grade, and neither [...]
Living Ranch Style
Before I came to Colorado, the word “ranch” meant the salad dressing to me. But then I knew “ranch” also means a farm for horses when Helen told we were going to live on her grandma’s ranch for 3 weeks. Helen’s grandma Karen lives on an eleven-acre ranch that includes a house, a barn, [...]
First Impressions of China
I close my eyes for a moment. I hear the rush of a waterfall and smell the fresh spring air: perfectly humid and not yet too hot. I feel the sun on my skin and relax into my surroundings. Then a car horn sounding through the waterfall reminds me that I am not at home [...]