For the second week of mid-semester break some friends and I headed down to the South Island for another adventure. We all had the goal of hiking one of the great walks of New Zealand entirely, so we took on the Abel Tasman trail.

I just finished my two-week long mid-semester break last weekend, and it was incredible. I jumped into the break by getting on a plane to Roratonga, one of the bigger islands that is part of the Cook Islands. This was a trip with IES Abroad.

It truly saddens me to think about how my study abroad experience will end in a few weeks, and it has caused me to truly reflect on the magnitude of my experiences here in Cape Town, South Africa. There are a few things I would change about my study abroad experience had I known then what I know now.

Living in Milan has made it so easy for me to travel to so many cities, and London was by far one of my favorites. It was nice to get to spend time with family and to see family members that I hadn’t met before. During my first night in the city, I was welcomed with a huge dinner that my grandpa and uncle had spent the day making. It was so amazing and had all of the traditional Jamaican food that I had been missing so much since moving to Italy. I got to know my cousins and even got to meet my great grandma!

Everyone warned me that I’d experience reverse culture-shock coming back to the United States, but of course I didn’t really know what that would mean. I’ve lived in the U.S. my whole life—how different could it really feel to come home?

The moment the wheels touched down in Chicago O’Hare, I was officially back in the United States. From that moment till now, I have been back home, and returning has been weird.

El Salvador is not Santa Fe, I found myself thinking as I sat on the bus from my Santiago homestay on my way to the IES Abroad Center. El Salvador is the name of the main street that I travel to school on in Santiago, a switch from the street, Santa Fe, that I traveled on in Buenos Aires. I have traded the tall buildings on Sante Fe for the short houses that line El Salvador, swapped the many fashion shops for a few corner convenience stores.

One of the adventures that has been on my bucket list for YEARS is to visit the Amazon Rainforest. Just one week ago, on April 26th, I fulfilled that dream—I'll spend the next 1,000 words trying to describe the incredible awe I felt throughout the experience, but truthfully, I cannot find any words that successfully express this one-of-a-kind adventure.

Months into the spring semester, I began to wonder when spring would actually arrive. Around me were subtle changes; the grass was slowly becoming greener and the day was lasting a little bit longer, but that was not enough for me. With the season's change, I was inspired to look back on how much or how little I have changed since the start of the program.

If you’ve kept up with my blog posts this semester, you might have picked up on how often I mention taking the subway or train. Berlin is a sprawling city, and I live about 45 minutes from the neighborhoods I spend the majority of my time in. Because of this long commute, it sometimes feels like I live on the subway. I grew up in a city with a single-line subway, which I normally only utilized when going downtown. Moving to Berlin has taught me how convenient it is to have a complex public transportation system at your fingertips.