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.

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.