What’s been happening here, you may ask? As we wrap up the second week of classes, I have learned much more than I expected (naturally with study abroad, both in and out of the classroom). What I am quickly coming to realize is that this is going to be a semester of learning, and all great knowledge understanding starts with a learning curve.

The Walking Curve:

Hola!

Last week I made it Spain

With only a few delays

To happily arrive in Granada,

A city to recieve much praise

I have 6 hours of Spanish every day

To orient us all Granada

People here have a first and second breakfast

Consisting usually of pan tostada

Everything here is lovely

From the language to the people to the stairs

I am learning so much about

Spain It makes me wish I knew more foreign affairs

A group of four friends and I spent our February break in Aix-en-Provence, a small city in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur region of France. Our goal: a relaxing week in a warm place with no formal itinerary. We booked an AirBnB in downtown Aix. Aix’s downtown area is about a kilometer in diameter, encircled by a major road. By the second day, we felt comfortable exploring these streets and got to know the layout pretty well.

Some tips we learned in Aix-en-Provence, and general travel advice for young people:

1. It is always a great idea to go to the local tourism office (if one exists) in person, because they can often provide great deals and advice on trips! If there is a website for the tourism office, that can work too. For us, it worked best to verify the bus schedules and fees in person at the tourism office.

2. Cheap flights exist! Two sites that have helped us are Skyscanner and StudentUniverse.

No, not with a boy. It’s midterms season and I’ve found myself being particularly stressed about schoolwork, my job, and my life as a whole. It is so easy for me to be swept away in the stress of it all and completely forget the big picture. As my dad likes to say, when I focus on something, I really focus on it. When I’m involved in doing something, it is hard to shift my attention to basically anything else other than the task at hand. This week, that thing that has held my entire attention was work.

Love second-hand, vintage, thrift, and flea-finds? For one weekend a month, the biggest flea market in Europe opens its doors to thousands of visitors in Amsterdam-Noord. IJ-Hallen is made up of two industrial warehouses that house over 750 vendors selling everything from clothing to antiques to vintage toys. Even just getting to the market is an adventure: a 10-minute ferry ride from Centraal Station to the other side of the river offers stunning views of the water and the city.

I attended a Viennese ball (pictured above). In the Hofburg Palace (pictured below). Need I say more!?

Thanks for reading my blog, and tschüss!

As a part of one of my courses, Community Development in Context (I described what that course is about in my last blog), we have to complete 40 hours of community service. As someone who has survived it, I wanted to volunteer at an organization that aimed at alleviating poverty in some way. After doing some research, I found an organization that seemed perfect for me: the Haven Night Shelter (also known as the Haven).

Amsterdam is a really cool city, and while this might seem empirical, it has taken some time for me to come to appreciate this. From my apartment in the financial district, Amsterdam looks like Boston or Long Island City. The culture appears broadly metropolitan, and rather international. In other words, the shift has not been radical, or especially "shocking." This was weird at first. I expected this tremendous transition, this intense adjustment to local customs and ways of being.

After a month and a half living in Vienna, I found some interesting German resources that I’d like to share today. 

Of course, there are our main resources, such as the German classes and faculty of IES Abroad, language buddies, and RAs (if you are living in an apartment). The following are resources other than the obvious: