I am in my bedroom at home, surrounded by suitcase shrapnel.  I am patiently waiting for all of this to feel real.

I am headed to the airport on Monday, where I will be flying for the first time in seven years.  I will land in Dublin, Ireland, which will be the only country outside of the United States that I have ever set foot in (yeah, not even Canada).  I am absolutely thrilled.  I am also absolutely terrified.

I have only ever flown abroad once in my life: I visited my grandparents in Slovakia when I was eleven years old. Now, nine years later, I scramble to pack my suitcase. Clothes, papers, toiletries—these make up ninety percent of my bedroom floor. I try to pick my favorite clothes that match with a select few pairs of pants so as not to overpack, especially since I hear clothing is cheap in Shanghai. However, I have read that it is difficult to find clothing larger than a size medium there, and I usually wear a large!

It was swelteringly hot the first week of Ramadan in Rabat; even sitting on the terrace at 7:14 p.m., when the sun had just dipped under the horizon, the heat was oppressive. It felt appropriate that the first heat wave of the year had swept the city as the holy month began. It left the ground as parched as the people. It also made fasting difficult.

For our final project, we IES Abroad students in the Studio Rietveld art class created a gallery of our works at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. During our last class session, IES Abroad staff, students, and friends came to see our gallery opening of works we created during the semester. Additionally, each student had a responsibility in getting the gallery together, including curating, audio-visual help, and promotion.

As I lazily watched the clouds pass from 35,000 feet in the air, the PA system came on, warning us that we would be landing soon. My flight from Chicago was 16 long hours, and although we landed late at night, I was restless and ready to explore Asia’s World City. Shortly after the announcement, I saw the lights of Taipei, then Kaohsiung City, before the plane sharply turned and headed directly for Hong Kong. As we flew over, my jaw dropped. Hong Kong is not a city. No, Chicago is a city.

It has officially been a week since my study abroad program ended, and I am still en route back home to Buffalo, New York. The day after my program ended, I packed up and flew to Ispica, Sicily with my grandfather. We spent six days living on the coast and exploring the local towns. Leaving bustling Berlin for serene Sicily was a tonal shift, and it better prepared me to return home.

After months of planning, I am now just days away from stepping onto the plane that will take me on the greatest adventure of my life. This summer I will be spending four weeks in Quito, Ecuador, three weeks in the Galapagos Islands, and will even be flying out a week early in order to hike to the incredible Machu Picchu in Peru. Though I’ve been planning this trip for months, it seems that I’ve just realized that I’m actually going!

For our last day-trip getaway, my friends and I decided to spend the day in Haarlem, a city west of Amsterdam. With clear blue skies, infinite sunshine, and temperatures in the low 70s, we set off from Centraal Station via the Intercity Train. After a quick 15-minute ride, we arrived to a quiet but beautiful Haarlem. Our first stop was the Teylers Museum, a science-art-history museum featuring a variety of rooms boasting everything from gemstones and crystals, to a Rembrandt exhibit. We then headed to the St.

Going home has been a bittersweet event. After almost four months, I am ready to see my family. However, I have made a lot of really good friends with people in my program and am sad to leave them. They live all over the U.S., so it will be convenient to have people to stay with if I ever decide to visit! It was especially hard to leave when the weather is getting hotter and more consistently warm. It is a joke in Berlin that people who live there never go on vacation because there is so much to do in Berlin.