Being back in the United States feels different but somehow neutral and insignificant. I didn’t have any profound epiphanies while abroad, but coming home I realized how much I genuinely grew as a person and in my ability to be self-aware. I feel calm and grounded being home, knowing, seeing, and feeling the power of slow growth. I want to intensify my practice of learning German by centering my academic studies around the connections between German and European colonialism in the Americas and Africa as a lens for decolonial study and practice.

You know, education is a very cool and important thing. I am extremely lucky to attend a great home university and an amazing school abroad as well. However, I would not be fooling anyone if I said I decided to study in New Zealand because of academics alone. I picked this small country on the other side of the world, more specifically the South Island, because of the vast natural beauties this land has to offer. As you could easily guess if you’ve seen my tattoo (sorry, Dad), I am a mountain girl.

While in Buenos Aires, I have explored much inside and outside of the city. I am going to touch on a few of my favorite adventures.

Do you ever have the urge to suddenly hike Cape Town's biggest mountains all in one day? No? Well for some reason the Three Peak challenge called our names, and we were determined to crush it. Nothing like an asthmatic and two amateur hikers taking on what native South Africans don't even like to do for fun. I don't think anyone considered this to be a "fun" experience. It was more of a cross it off the bucket list, prove to everyone that you did it, do it for the title kind of experience.

Cape Town has a number of outdoor activities that one could consider 'dangerous' but a boat to Seal Island is definitely not one of them. Or so I thought. I can tell you that I was not really looking to pull a Titanic moment when the Captain said that the waves were quite rough but we were going to continue on anyway. There was a slight moment when I realized that this was the actual ocean we were going into, not little old Lake Michigan with its dinky little waves.

Remember when you were a kid stuck in the car without a phone on a family road trip? Driving on the Garden Route is kind of the same thing. It was long, flat, and we were driving on the wrong side of the road. There was a moment where we all realized that tuning into our phones and listening to music really wasn’t as fun as one might think. Tuning out the world while exploring it was not really the way to go. Instead of being bored and staring out the window, we started the 1st South African Thumb War Championship. It was intense.

It is currently Sunday afternoon, July 28th. It hasn’t even been 24 hours since over half of my group of friends left for America, and I already miss them. Shrinking from a group of nine to four adds an unexpectedly large feeling of loneliness and vulnerability. I have never steadily hung out with the same people for such a long period of time. We have shared eight weeks full of memories. We did everything together, from eating meals, exploring the city, or just hanging out in the apartments.

My six weeks in Dublin were the most incredible weeks of my life.  But, alas, all good things must come to an end, and I have been back in America for exactly a week.  I've given all my gifts, displayed my souvenirs, and unpacked my incredibly overweight suitcase.  Now that I'm fully acclimated to life as I knew it, I've had time to reflect on my time in Ireland, and there's a lot of things that I wish I knew before I went abroad.

Compared to my other friends who are not Chinese, my study abroad experience has not been drastically different. I have not experienced any blatant racism or been treated as if I were inferior. Occasionally, locals will ask me what ethnicity I am and where I come from, but they are not trying to be offensive. I do imagine that growing up in the U.S. and being an English speaker helps my situation since the culture norms in Europe are not significantly different from the U.S. and most people speak at least a tiny bit of English.

I arrived home to Indiana six days ago on July 20 to what I can only describe as an overwhelming sense of both relief and regret. On the drive from the Indianapolis airport before my eyes appeared, in all its glory, a monstrous six-wheeled dual-exhaust lifted truck with diesel fumes spewing out both sides in a cloud of black-grey haze. I thought, "Oh wow! A truck!