"A language-lover abroad" 78Eva's Profile

My name is Eva, and I was born and grew up in a small town in northwestern Germany. I have always been drawn to travelling, and could spend hours over the atlas, imagining strange and exciting places. When I was sixteen, I spent an entire school year in NORWAY, with a Norwegian host family and going to a Norwegian school. I had the time of my life, og laerte aa snakke norsk!
It was during this time that this whole new world opened up to me:
LIVING ABROAD

instead of just travelling abroad. I impatiently spent two more years at high-school in Germany, eagerly awaiting the time when I could go to live abroad in many different places. I was going to go to Alaska and live and study there - nothing became of that and I haven't made it to Alaska yet, but instead I ended up in DUBLIN, Ireland.
I spent three years in Dublin, that great city, doing my BA in Near Eastern Languages (Arabic and ancient Hebrew). It was a fabulous time during which I got to know the city pretty well. I'm greeting all UCD people!

After Dublin, I lived in MOROCCO for half a year, studying Arabic in Fez. What a magical time I had there, exotic, exciting, wonderful. It was here that I met my American boyfriend from ITHACA, NY. After having gone through the difficult stage of life of people with distance relationships, we have now been living together for a while, in England, Germany and America.

Later, I lived in OXFORD for a year doing a Diploma course. Although I met a number of really nice people (mostly Americans) during my time in Oxford, it was not a very happy time, and I was glad to leave it in the end. I wasn't the biggest fan of England after this time.
However, luckily my England picture has changed by now, after having lived there for another year, this time in DURHAM, in northern England. I absolutely adore northern England, the mentality there, the landscape, the vicinity to Scotland etc. I studied Translation and Literature in Durham, mostly Arabic.

I love remote and unusual places, little islands, quirky small towns etc. Last autumn I went on a road trip through the American Midwest and Rocky Mountain Region. How amazing! I loved it just as much as I though I would! Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, South Dakota, I wish I could have stayed much longer!
In South Dakota, a childhood dream came true - I was able to finally visit De Smet, the little town where "Little House on the Prairie" really took place and the home of the Ingalls family. I had read the books sooo many times as a child. My experiences there you can look up in my De Smet page.

I am a total language person, I love languages and try to learn as many as possible! Among my more exotic ones are Arabic and Hebrew (Arabic really is my main subject), but my favourite and most loved one is Italian. I have a passion for ITALY and have spent many great times there, especially in Siena.
As you can see below, reading is my world.

Cesare Pavese, one of my most loved writers

I always read.
Nothing better than getting lost in a good novel. Please let me know the books you love, I'm always looking out for a good read.

Some of my own favourites:

Michael Ondaatje:
The English Patient
Anil's Ghost

Umberto Eco:
The Name of the Rose

Alice Walker/ Pratibha Parma:
Warrior Marks

Simone de Beauvoir:
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter

Mahmoud Darwish:
Eleven Stars over Andalusia

Sylvia Plath:
The Bell Jar

Peter H?eg:
Smilla's Sense of Snow

Marilyn French:
The Women's Room

Natalia Ginzburg:
All her writings

Elsa Morante:
La Storia

Linda Hogan:
Solar Storms

Willa Cather:
O Pioneers!
My Antonia

Ethan Hawke:
Ash Wednesday

Pearl Abraham:
The Romance Reader
Giving Up America

Cesare Pavese:
All his writings

Hayden Herrera:
Frida Kahlo

Vladimir Nabokov:
Lolita

Vikram Seth: A Suitable Boy

Savyon Liebrecht:
Apples from the Desert

James Joyce:
Dubliners

Giorgio Bassani:
The Garden of the Finzi-Contini

Kazuo Ishiguro:
The Remains of the Day

Bruce Chatwin:
most of his writings

Mende Nazer:
Slave

Janet Frame:
An angel at my table, the biographic trilogy

Paul Alexander:
Rough Magic (Biography of Sylvia Plath)

I spent half a year in Morocco, a magical time.
This photo was taken on a beautiful day in April, I was visiting a woman I knew from Fes in her home village near Taza. The kids were climbing all over us and even made me ride on a donkey, I still have to dig that picture out. Everything was blossoming, it was green wherever you looked. The hospitality was incredible.

Ingalls homestead

Under "De Smet" you find my visit to the Laura Ingalls Wilder home (Little House on the Prairie). This is me in South Dakota on the Ingalls homestead.

Dugout house in the Midwest

How about sleeping in here? This is my boyfriend in front of a South Dakota "dugout house"; it is built intol the hill. You certainly save on heating this way, but it was kind of dark and gloomy inside. Anyone who has read the Little House on the Prairie will remember this kind of a house - the Ingalls family lived in one in Minnesota. I hear they're getting more popular again among eccentrics; they are environmentally friendly and warm.