Better late than never, right?  I will be completely honest with you that, given all the other things to do in France, I was never very motivated to write these posts.  Nevertheless, I said I would write them, and I intend to keep my word!  So buckle up as we run through the last month and a half of my time in France.

1. Bring your favorite sweatshirt from home. It’s nice to have something cozy that reminds you of home, and it can get cold inside (radiator heat takes some getting used to and, at least in my host family, they air the house everyday by opening all the windows).
2. You will miss the United States at times, but it’ll be ok. You’ll want to give up and go home, but think about when you were applying to study abroad and how excited you were.

I really enjoy being outdoors and hiking, so naturally I had to go to Switzerland. Switzerland was up there with Greece on my study abroad bucket list. I have officially visited all of France’s bordering countries (with the exception of Andorra). I tried to get a group of friends to go, but no one wanted to go with me, so I decided to carve out some me-time and make it a solo trip. I hopped on a 5 hour train and made my way to Interlaken!

Coming home from study abroad has been nothing like I expected.  I’m not sure if there are any specific differences that I anticipated, but I did definitely anticipate at least some sense of change.  Everyone I spoke to (who had studied abroad before I did) told me that returning to your home city and university were the toughest parts of the whole experience.  As such, I expected to find it challenging to fall back into my life in Baltimore, after feeling like I had developed another existence in an

I have accumulated so many photos that my phone is constantly telling me that my storage is full. I take lots of scenery pictures, but they don’t usually do the view justice. I also have some awkwardly posed photos, however, the best stories and memories have come from my Snapchats. They tend to be more spur-of-the-moment pictures that highlight my favorite parts. 

¡Hola mis amigos! It’s been a little over a week since I arrived back home in California, and I’ve been spending my time relaxing and reflecting on my time abroad. Part of me feels like it was just yesterday when I landed in Granada, stumbling over my words in Spanish and getting lost every time I left the house. While I definitely still did those things up until my last days there, I know that I’ve grown so much over these past few months.

First off, let me just say what a wild ride. Just to get it out of the way early, those of you wondering if you should study abroad in Europe, the answer is yes. “Yeah, but what if I can’t adjust to—“, go. “Yeah but what if I get there and don’t like—“, go. If you’re on the fence, don’t ‘what if’ the decision to death. Yes, it is a big life decision, but don’t let the size of the situation or reservations keep you from the best semester of your life.

To grossly oversimplify the whole economic concept, the main drivers of price are supply and demand. Depending on how much you need something, you’re willing to pay a higher or lesser price. The same relationship exists with supply, the more or less of something there is the lower or higher the price will be, respectively.

It was a Tuesday. It was a cold, rainy Tuesday. It was the kind of Tuesday that was probably supposed to be a Monday but just showed up a day late to the party.

Okay, let’s just go ahead and address the huge elephant in the room, and probably a reason some might be hesitant to study abroad in France. Protests.

The idea of the protest is as old as democracy itself, and being a red-blooded American, I’m all for a good protest. If you don’t like how things are going or don’t agree with a decision, speak up about it. Stand up for what you believe in, for better or for worse. Whether effective or not, and whether you agree with the principle or not, protests are part of effective democracy.

Hallo Alle!