1. Live in a place you never heard of (literally)
Have you heard of Whitefish (a small town in Montana)? I bet 90% of American never heard of this place either.
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| Whitefish, Montana (sorry, i copy this from my friend) |
2. Live the local way
Take the public transport to places that you wanted to go and ask around for direction.
In Whitefish, We take the S.N.O.W. bus to work everyday and to ski up the mountain. Else, we just walk to anywhere we wanted to go. Everyone had walk to the supermarket, laundry, downtown, the lake. Some even tried walk their way up/down the mountain. Impressive!
We don't need to drive around like we used to in our country.
Shop at local supermarket/food store for food. We would buy the cheapest food or raw food to cook.
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| S.N.O.W. bus... Bring me to the snow~ |
3. Work a job you might never ever consider
Everyone should at least work in customer relation/service field at least once in their life. Once you experienced the hard work, u can put yourself on others shoe before getting mad.
You never try, You never know
As a university student have you ever dream of being a
housekeeper? a
line chef? a
casino dealer? a
mascot?
theme park worker?
Taking role of this job for few months let you have in mind how hard these people work.
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| I am proud to say that i am (was) a housekeeper! |
4. Learn to appreciate small things around you.
You get to slow your lifestyle and start to enjoy everything around you. You will learn to stop, take a glimpse of the nature and it's environment.
A random rainbow that appear out of no where, watching sunset on the way home from work, snowing when you step out from your comfort crib, a simple thank you from someone you helped....... all this very tiny details in our life that we may not notice during our busy school/work day will mean so much!
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| Picnic in the snow by the frozen Whitefish Lake |
5. Affordable Travel
When you don't have to convert everything (i mean everything) back to your home currency and thinking how expensive everything is (even milk?!)
Earning and spending the same currency bring things back to balance and most importantly, you will start to plan your budget so you still have pennies left to survive till your last day.
If you are not joining the Work & Travel Program, travel for a months will be super expensive.
During our month long travel around USA, we used train, bus, flight, subway, taxi. Whichever that take us to our destination with the lowest cost. For some places (New Orleans for example, do not have convenience public transport. So we have to take the cab to the town.)
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| All the transportation ticket for my month long travel in USA! |
6. Homesick
Well, at least a certain point you will start to miss your home, your family, your favourite home food.
It's sometimes good that you are separated away from home and you start to thinking how awesome is your parents/sibling/friends.
You won't realise it when you get to contact them so easily anytime, get to eat all those delicious hometown food all the time
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| Took this at a wonderful shop in Whitefish |
7. Learn something new
You are at a new place, pick up some local sports/hobbies that you never get to chance to do it at your home country.
As i'm working and living in a ski town, i get to learn ski and snowboarding and i'm still alive!! very much alive! I'm not a sports person and it took me double the time to learn and excel compare to everyone else. (i know, kill me please)
Everyone here know how to ski/snowboard and you can see super senior citizen(70+ years old) ski as well!! woo hoo~
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| Love my pink ski pants. Took this while riding the lift chair at Chair 7!! I miss skiing... |
8. You realise that you need to travel at least once a year
Once you started to travel around, you will find that YOLO and life is too short for only work.
Enjoying life, getting on adventure and get to go where you want to go is a priority.
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| A random street view along the road at Whitefish during winter. Does it make u miss your last vacation? |
9. You will be a master chef
Eating out is luxury and you absolutely cannot do that all the time. In order to save money, you will have to cook your own meal. Over few months of practice, you will be a chef when you go back to your home country.
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| Some of our awesome home cooked meals |
10. Work Hard, Play Harder
When you are working, you are working. No slacking, using of mobile phone is not allowed and learn to get your job done within the time period.
After the work hour, it's party time! Off day is never a bored day. There is always something to do or somewhere to go~ maximise all the time abroad.
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| At Zion National Park. I am a dangerous person, i love to do dangerous activity~ haha |
11. Be Responsible
I guess no further explanation is needed?!
When we join the program, We are dealing with few parties, our home country agent, visa sponsor, employer and landlord. Screwing up either party you will be in trouble.
Is not anything stress as long as you do what your are assigned to and avoid what you are not suppose to.
When you are in the program, you represent your country (like an ambassador). The local people might not know anything about our country and your are representing us. Anything you do affect the impression of them towards us.
But... chillax, it's about working holiday. Don't be too serious.. haha
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| Like a Brand Ambassador (pardon me) |
12. Awesome Lifetime Friendship
We get to know other International Student working in the same place. Everyone live together as a big family and have lots of fun together. We do crazy things, things we will not do at home, together! We are kids here! haha..
How awesome when you realise you have friends
in Argentina!
'hey, i have friends in Chile! i'm going to visit them someday~'
Don't
you think is cool?
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| Christmas celebration in Whitefish |
