As the mid-semester break arrived, I had the opportunity to travel outside of New Zealand for a few weeks. Don’t get me wrong, I love everything about Auckland…but the IES Abroad program’s trip to Rarotonga (an island in the Cook Islands) had left me dreaming of sunshine and warm weather for weeks.

Today marks two weeks of being in Milan and I am already overwhelmed by the beauty I have been able to experience. Luckily I am rooming with 5 guys who want to travel as much as I do and we all happen to get along very well. So we are taking advantage of our free weekends as much as possible!

Every day that I am immersed in the German language is a little different. Here in Berlin, all my college classes - The German Social Market Economy, Modern German Literature, Theater in Berlin, and Berlin Memory Politics are taught in German, which has proved to be quite a challenge...sometimes.

It is difficult defining the definite. There are times, more often than not, when I travel through thickening thoughts of wonder. Those places of thought and spaces in reality are polarizing. When I’m there, I’m never really here. 

It is impossible to walk far down the streets of Nantes with an empty stomach. Along with the normal forecast of cloudy skies and chilly temperatures you can be sure back-to-back cafes, restaurants, and boulangeries (bakeries) will emit wafts of freshly buttered bread, clouds of powdered sugar and the sharp cutting winds of cheese. All this will fill your nose and mouth with scents of delicious promises that you can’t ignore.

Well, folks, it's been a full week since I landed in Dublin, and it's safe to say that I am pleasantly overwhelmed.

So much has happened in the past seven days. As I sat here in the basement of a coffee shop to write this blog post, I'm not even sure where to start. This week has been filled with so many introductions, surprises, learning, and adventures, I find it almost impossible to summarize, but I’ll do my best.

It’s only been a week since we left the U.S. and it already feels as if a month has gone by! The days have been full of activity and even though I’m still tired, I feel like my body is finally adjusting. Before I begin, I must mention that my roommate, Lindsay, and I just got pulled into an impromptu dance session with a group of women (whom we don’t know) downstairs. It was so much fun!

“Ohla! Ohla! Estás aquí?” slam thud thud “OHLA!”

I pop an eye open, face glued to the mattress. “Sí! Sí! Estoy aquí!” I’m still recovering from a rather unsettling dream involving the slow mastication of my feeble body in the web of a million spiders, but I manage to roll over and glance out of my new room onto the patio— sun berating hot red tile, florescent chairs glistening vibrantly, me wearing one sock and a ragged tank top. “Uno momento por favor!”

This past Sunday afternoon, I met up with two friends, Brad and Sally, to play some pick-up ultimate frisbee at Gleisdreieck Park. We have been playing a lot together in our first few weeks in Berlin, testing out practices with different teams and getting to know the frisbee culture in Germany.