Richmond is currently 90 degrees and probably the most beautiful I have seen it in the four years I’ve lived here. Blue skies, thousands of trees, and puffy white clouds straight out of movies bring me some peace as I sulk in a melting pot of nerves, excitement, gratitude, and thirty tabs on German history. I’m originally from Brazil, and even though I’ve lived in the United States since I was ten months old, going to Europe, Germany at that, for my college study abroad was not necessarily something I was expecting to do.

“Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.” —Wilma Rudolph

Studying abroad is an investment in your education and your future that you won’t likely regret. While traveling always involves expected (and unexpected) expenses, there are also always ways to enjoy wherever you’re studying without maxing out your budget.

Having lived in Paris for over a month now, I’ve compiled a list of my top 6 favorite activities in the city you don’t need to bring your wallet for.

Traveling abroad in itself is often a completely uprooting experience—it shows us perspectives far outside of our own. Though traveling to another country and working there are on quite different levels. Here are five things I’ve learned in my internship in Paris:

This past week my study abroad program had the opportunity to spend five days traveling around Morocco with Morocco Exchange. I loved our time in Morocco and felt like every one of us learned a lot and grew as people because of the experience. I really hope to go back in the future and explore some of these places for a longer period of time, because I definitely wasn’t ready to leave! In this post I want to give you a short introduction to our experiences in each city we visited.

The moment I set foot on campus and saw the study abroad table at the campus activities fair, I knew I wanted to spend a semester of my college time abroad. I marched straight to my study abroad office to learn about where I could go and what I could study. After talking to my friends and family for months about it, I decided where to go. While they thought I’d be just across the Atlantic Ocean in Europe or down in South America, in fact, I’d chosen Auckland—almost all the way across the globe.

              As classes came to an end, I was able to make a short trip to Australia. My goal for this trip was checking the Great Barrier Reef off of my bucket list. For as long as I can remember, diving the Great Barrier Reef was something that I wanted to accomplish. When I first came to New Zealand, I didn’t have my dive certification. But I got that a few months ago, which put me one step closer to accomplishing this goal. And last week I was able to dive for two days in the Great Barrier.

             New Zealand has 10 Great Walks. All can be done as multiple day backpacking trips and some have small sections that can be done as individual day trips. When I originally came to New Zealand, I knew nothing of these walks but I knew New Zealand was an ideal place to be if you are an outdoorsy person. Since finding out about the Great Walks, I have made it a personal goal to get to as many of them as I possibly could in my time here.

Amsterdam has been so good to me. One of the most livable major cities I’ve ever been to. Over the last two months of my program, I made a conscious decision to stay in one place and really live here. Not just in Europe but in Amsterdam - a city of pragmatism and relaxing, intellectualism and academia, regulated drugs and safe sex work. A city of few extremes but lots of healthy mediums and reasonable compromises.