The white man selling paintings beside the Westerkerk smiles as I approach. “Where are you from?” he asks me. 

Later I will learn that for some Dutch citizens with immigrant parents or grandparents, this question - waar kom je vandaan? - can have volatile undertones, much like the “Where are you really from?” posed to people in the U.S. For now, I just say, “I’m from Sri Lanka.” 

“Oh, Sri Lanka!” exclaims the man. “I was there once!”

I have had a very extensive “study abroad experience” you could say. When people ask where I go to school I usually tell them I go to Marist college out of New York, but I’ve never been there. I go to Marist, Italy, and study as a full-time student at their campus in Florence. I spend 4 years abroad to get a degree from an American school without ever going to America. My study abroad experience in this way has been slightly more “broader.” 

Before leaving to study abroad, I hoped that classes in Ecuador would offer a different perspective and challenge my own ideas about people and the environment. Yet, over the past three weeks I have been happily surprised to find that classes abroad go far beyond introducing new perspectives, and every class has a plethora of opportunities to physically apply academic discussions to the surrounding environment through field trips.

Kia ora! I know many of you (all my fans out there) have been waiting patiently for my mid-semester break post. Well lucky for you I have finally stopped procrastinating! For those who don’t keep up with the wild concept that is the New Zealand academic calendar, there are two terms each semester, each being six weeks. Between those two terms, there is a two-week “mid-semester break”. So, in summary, we get two weeks off in the middle of the semester to do absolutely whatever we want.

“BOOM”

“BOOM”

“BOOM”

“BOOM”

“BOOM”

It’s been a while since I’ve written. The first couple weeks of being back in Shanghai have been more tumultuous than I would have liked. Combining personal drama, readjusting to being away from home, and starting senior year makes a very unsteady foundation to your semester abroad. I find myself feeling lonely, scared, excited, guilty, liberated – a wide and contradictory range of emotions.

As a student, I realize I am constantly on a budget. This is a struggle because as a student I constantly want to do things that cost money. I want to go out, get food/drinks with friends, and travel around. As a study abroad student, all these wants are multiplied, along with the costs. I have found so far that traveling while studying abroad in Sydney, Australia is different than as opposed to another common study abroad destination such as Europe.

Americans have a soft spot for revolutionaries, for freedom fighters, for the mothers and fathers of liberty. It is ingrained in our blood no less than the stripes and stars themselves. Thomas Jefferson urged for a revolution with each new generation. Every fifth grader from Virginia to Nebraska has heard Patrick Henry’s famous ultimatum, demanding either liberty or death. At a Libertarian debate, Presidential Nominee Gary Johnson was booed for agreeing that drivers should be required to obtain a license prior to operating a motor vehicle.

I watch the field of blinking lights fly past my window. We shoot into the sky at over 300mph, turning my city into a little toy display, like the kind you see in Christmas shop windows. In 6 hours and 50 minutes, I will be in Frankfurt. Only 3 generations ago, this would have been a perilous journey of weeks at sea. It’s no mystery that technology is advancing amazingly fast, but what I never realized before is how drastically the meaning of travel is changing with it.    

So, it’s the middle of the week, hump day if you will. All of your classes have gotten mysteriously canceled or just prerecorded so you really don’t have any time commitments for the day. What do you do? Go to the gym, watch some Netflix, maybe cook up a nice meal for yourself? Plot twist: you live in New Zealand.