Now that I have completed my summer internship abroad and am back home meeting with friends and family, everyone is asking to hear everything about my experience. However, it’s difficult to know exactly what aspects of my summer to focus on, especially when I'm trying to fit the whole experience in about a minute of conversation. I imagine many others have had a similar experience after studying abroad or completing an internship in a different country.

Home is far, yet it is here. I wrote in my last post about making home where I am, about settling in, and about not being homesick. I reflect on that now as I listen to a playlist made for me by a loved one, titled, “Music too Miss YOU 2.” I must say, I miss them, “to.” 

I'm still wrapping my head around the fact that in less than twenty-four hours I'll be departing from LAX and taking a twelve-hour flight to Tokyo, where I'll be staying for the next four months studying Japanese language and culture. I’m lucky enough that I can say this isn’t the first time I’ve been to Japan—my mom grew up in Yokohama and we used to visit her parents every so often when I was younger.

When I was young, my abuelita would lay down next to me before I went to sleep and do four things: she’d tell me how much she loved me, she’d tickle me all over, she’d pray to La Virgencita to watch over me, and she’d tell me a story. I remember many of her stories—stories of past loves, of my mother when she was a child, of life in Colombia. They were always very colorful, fun, and meaningful—the perfect way to end the day.

The friendly term yalla was one of three phrases I learned in Arabic when I visited Morocco a year and a half ago. For the first couple of days, I idly wondered why our guide kept saying “y’all” this and “y’all” that - until I stopped to ask him what he meant. How sheepish I felt to learn that he was encouraging us in the right direction and was not, in fact, poking fun at our American slang.

I had the opportunity to visit some friends in northern Germany before I start my semester-long program in Freiburg, in southern Germany. For the last week, I’ve visited many beautiful places, eaten lots of bread, and listened to many people speak German.

Hi beautiful strangers and potential friends,

I am Yupeng Wu, a rising junior at Bryn Mawr College, studying Anthropology and History of Art. I will be sharing my experience in Granada, Spain on this blog in the next few months.

I just went on a trip with my family recently. It was the second time I got to see my parents in the past year. The trip was short but sweet. On my flight back alone, I came across a quote by Sally Wen Mao, a Chinese American poet:

There was an unremarkable amount of snow on the mountains, so we bought lift tickets to commemorate the end of summer and the start of classes. Skiing on the red (intermediate) slopes is a lot like speaking Spanish for me at the moment. I can get down the mountain, but I’m not in control and will likely crash abruptly. 

The food situation at my home university is a bit odd in comparison to the “average” American school. We don’t have dining halls, meaning that every night you are either eating out or cooking. Because of this, I have grown fairly accustomed to doing a weekly grocery run and almost look forward to it. Little did I know this practice would come in handy when I came to Christchurch for the semester, as we don’t use a dining hall either.