Yeah so obviously I spoke too soon, as I am writing this from my room in Indiana and not my room in Auckland. I submitted the last post I wrote on a Sunday, and on Thursday of that week, the email came. 

Here are all the souvenirs I got in Italy and a little bit in Greece! I am excited to have parts of Italy with me and at my real home in Nebraska! It was so much fun traveling everywhere knowing that I have been to places with so many people to dream to go! I really wanted to not spend too much money but I still wanted long-lasting memories in the form of an item. I was happy to still be able to get the “touristy” items but also was able to get some unique items as well!

On Wednesday, March 11, I turned 21. I was so excited to turn 21 in Germany, even though the age is not as significant as in the United States. It still felt like reaching a milestone in a special way, and what better place to celebrate than Berlin?

When I arrived stateside on the 17th of March and the airport’s medical screening went much faster than expected, I had a while to wait before my sister arrived to retrieve me. During the wait, I chatted with a dear friend via good old-fashioned phone call. She had returned home to Maryland from her study abroad program in Paris a few days previous to our call (after enduring an even more rapid and frenzied turn-around, pack-everything-up, & leave-the-city experience than I did).

I unfortunately had to leave my study abroad in Rome Italy where I was doing a full time internship and taking an Italian class. I was able to stay there a full month and then had to go home because of the Coronavirus spreading across the world. It was in Italy before it was in the US and I got asked to leave from my home school. I actually chose to leave the day they emailed me to come home so I was able to tell them I was already on my way home. The main reason I was asked to leave was because Italy overall went to a level 3 travel advisory.

Here is an update of my while I was in Italy during the early parts of it spreading in Italy this was 3rd to last week in February 2020. It was such a crazy time. Within this week I flew all the way back home to the US and then a few days later the country shut down. For the first week before I left all of our classes and my internship was online. I was getting worried because it was for precautions but from reading the news I knew it was bigger than that.

Here was the second part of my first week in Rome! We really took advantage of not having classes yet and traveled around a lot and explored the city we were living in for the next few months! I saw the Colosseum which was so breathtaking! We also saw cart and horses on the curbside that were giving people rides. Luckily, the friends that I went with wanted to take pictures and I got some beautiful pictures in front of the Colosseum as well as the sunset for that day.

Here was my long journey of traveling to Rome Italy for my study abroad trip all alone! I had a layover in Chicago for 6 hours and it was a LONG time till I finally reached Italy! Luckily, I met some really great people and had such a great time in Italy! I would 100% do it again and hope to do it sometime in the future! I started in Nebraska, went to Chicago, from Chicago I went to Germany and from Germany arrived in Italy!

Even though I've unfortunately had to return to the United States due to the current epidemic, I still have many stories to tell about my experiences in Europe. As you will undoubtedly be able to tell, my friends and I narrowly escaped a pretty sticky situation by accidentally scheduling our flights at the exact right moments as we embarked on a whirlwind tour of Europe during our winter break in late February.

1) Bunkers del Carmel