Holiday Availability: All IES Abroad offices will be closed on Dec 24, Dec 25, Dec 31, and Jan 1 as we take some time to celebrate. During the weeks of 12/22 and 12/29, our team will be smaller, so responses may take longer than usual. Thanks for your understanding—and happy holidays!
I never stressed about school until I got to college. My school, Kenyon, is full of incredibly smart, dedicated students, and the pressure to succeed in classes is hard to escape. In the past year or so, weighed down by COVID-19 restrictions altering my college experience, I began to think more about what my priorities would be not only in college, but throughout my life.
Someone I know once advised my younger friends that if they wanted to study abroad, they needed to start saving last week. It’s expensive here — really expensive. I’m not referencing the groceries and the public transportation. Honestly, that’s cheaper than your nearby Kroger and nightly Ubers. I’m talking about the weekly weekend trips, big and small. So, what do you do? You buy the world’s cheapest flights possible at the earliest and latest times possible — booked weeks in advance, too.
As a film major living through the pandemic, I have definitely forgotten the energy entering a bustling cinema. I think this past month has been the first time in years I've seen a sizable group amass for any film other than something made by Disney. I'm talking about my experience at the 72nd Berlinale, otherwise known as the Berlin Film Festival. Over ten days in the middle of winter, many films played to eager audiences, most productions from outside of German-speaking regions.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the amazing opportunity to go to London with my roommate Sammi! She decided to get a hotel in the city, while I got to stay with my old friend Holly, who lives in southeast London near Wimbledon. We unluckily chose to visit over the weekend that Storm Eunice rolled in, which was one of the worst storms that the UK has seen in a while, so we were glad for our planes to land safely and to make it into the city. The wind was crazy our first day; we could hardly stand up straight!
After a month of newness and a week of quarantine, I think living in Rome is just starting to sink in.
It’s going to happen at one time or another, sadly. You’re gone for two to four months, thousands of miles away in another country across the world with very few commonalities of anything you’ve ever known — I’m probably not helping at this point. However, I’ve always believed that the best things in life are almost always on the other side of fear — discomfort can be a really good thing. Sometimes, though, it can all catch up to you at once, and it never really does so at the right time.
I’ve been on San Cristóbal island for a little over a month now, and I feel like I was greatly under-prepared for the amount of vaginal stress I have had to endure on this trip.
There are some things you just can’t get used to. For example: scented toilet paper (who thought that was a good idea?)
I was drifting off to sleep last night, exhausted from a long day at work and bracing myself to do it again the next day, when a wisp of a thought drifted its way harmlessly to the forefront of my mind and electrified my consciousness.
I jolted awake… I leave for Buenos Aires in THREE DAYS?!?!