You may be wondering how all that happened?
Let us recap it for you!
Studying abroad comes with a mix of feelings and it creates unique experiences for those spending time out of their country to learn something new.
To experience this for the very first time we invited 6 YouTubers from all over the world
for a journey of discovery, learning and an adventure throughout Africa.
Hi! My name is Cinthya and I’m from Mexico. I’m 23 years old.
Hello! My name is Berk, I’m 19 years old. I’m from Turkey, I do YouTube from Turkey.
Hi guys! My name is Marcela. I came to Cape Town to have an amazing time and meet people from all around the world, who also speak English.
Hello! My name is Mervan and I’m 22 years old. I come from Turkey.
Hey guys! My name is Baturay and I’m from Turkey.
I came to Cape Town with LAL Schools to improve my English and also travel and see South Africa.
Hi guys! I’m Leticia. I’m from Brazil but I currently live in New York.
I’m a photographer and I also do LAL videos for YouTube.
After being introduced to each other and attending a traditional South African barbecue,
or braai, we left LAL Cape Town early the next morning.
Our destination was Sedgefield.
We’re here at Birkenhead. I think it’s an amazing experience to be here because all the way to here since we left the school
until this point of the lesson, I think it’s been a great experience, because we got to know each other well.
Especially for me, what I like the most is to talk to everybody else. Knowing that different accents, different cultures are getting mixed up.
Now, it’s time to practise but also to have fun. I haven’t felt like I’m at school, you know?
Whenever I talk to the guys I feel like we’re really connecting and learning from each other.
At first, we went to have breakfast in Hermanus, and there was a place where we could take a lot of pictures and socialize,
really get out of our shells… Then we get here and we did wine tasting and beer tasting.
We did a little bit of exercises to practise our English and know where we’re at.
I just think that it’s an experience worth trying, because you’re not at school but you feel like you’re at school. You’re trying new things...
The views are amazing here. Everywhere you look is gorgeous and you just want to take pictures everywhere.
People are really, really nice. It’s one of the countries I’ve been to where I really feel at home.
It’s very beautiful here, guys.
Getting to Stanford we had our first lesson during beer tasting.
That was the best opportunity for us to discover more about each other.
Nothing is better than the classic 5 Truths and 1 Lie.
I travelled to England to find a boy I fell in love with on a summer trip.
My favourite sport is basketball.
(Leticia) That’s a lie.
(Marcela) She said it out loud!
My favourite artist group is Queen.
I got my first tattoo when I was 15 years old. It was a fairy, which I totally regret and I covered it with a rose.
In 2016 I crashed my car and it flipped a few times. I got out without a scratch.
Don’t judge me. God is watching you. I have already painted my hair purple, blue and pink.
I cheated on my girlfriend when I went to Kyiv.
I have done 4 exchange programmes around the world. The first one was in New York, right before I went to college.
One for cheating, one for basketball…
(Kyle) I don’t believe in the car one…
Oh, ok! Basketball, that’s two…
I had two lies! The first one, I cheated on my girlfriend, is a lie. The second one – I’ve never been to America.
1 vote for tattoo, 1 vote for the zoo… You’re all wrong, the lie was the second one, about the lion.
It was my friend, actually!
It’s not just about learning English, I think.
The smallest part is the classroom part.
The big part is actually interacting with other people in English.
One language is gonna bond you all, and the staff and the friends you’ll make.
Actually, spending time practising your English while you're having fun
you don't even know you're learning English in a new way.
Yeah, and actually you get even better than staying in a classroom all the time, and the teacher always talking to you
in English, but sometimes you don't talk to the other people.
You need to do that, there is no other way. You either communicate in English or you don't communicate at all.
You're gonna have the best time of your life, or not, like... It's your choice. You'll need to talk.
You'll need to socialize… You'll need to raise your hand and ask for help,
you'll need to ask a question about culture or get directions to find a place where you can wash your clothes.
It's everywhere you go, you need to learn English, you need to speak English and the best way to do it is to have the best experience of your life
I have to be honest, guys
The first couple of days were a small challenge.
Can you imagine how it feels travelling with 5 other people you've never met before and don't share a language?
Yes, it's not easy to open yourself to it. But it will happen.
It all started with some conversations, and after a few days we discovered that we had more similarities among each other than we imagined.
It might be the warmth of Mervan's smiles
or how caring and passionate Cinthya is when creating her content…
We all love to share Marcela's mission of enabling people to travel the globe
and we all agree that sometimes the best is just to save our voice for some precise comments, just like Baturay does.
And suddenly, after a few days, we were not strangers anymore.
We were on our way to become an international family.
Stay tuned to see how that happened!