We have to keep in mind that the first word in the phrase “study abroad” is indeed “study”. After my trip to Croatia earlier this month, I made the decision to take a break from traveling and focus my efforts into finishing strong in school. Throughout my stay in Amsterdam, I’ve been attending a Dutch course every Tuesday evening. While this is true, I did not really take my lessons seriously until about a week ago when I was studying for the Dutch final exam.

            “Life is short so you gotta do what you want because we’ll all eventually die!”

            “Savage.”

I wouldn’t necessarily consider my home university a liberal campus, but I specifically come from a very liberal and seemingly inclusive bubble of community with a strong activist culture of social justice and inclusion.

Before I left for my adventures abroad, there was a lot of preparation materials and questions I had, one of the most pressing was: What is the best plan for my cell phone?

Naturally, all IES Abroad students are required to have working cell phones while abroad; and for good reason. Not only is everything going to be unfamiliar, but Google Maps will be your friend when it comes to navigating the public transport systems at the beginning of the semester.

I never thought I was “good at languages.” I took Spanish classes for four years and liked it, but never felt confident speaking. My parents stopped attempting to teach me Hebrew when I was little because I was stubborn. Even with English, I never had a proper grammar class and often can’t think of the right words to say. German is not easy and I make mistakes all the time, but I love speaking German. I feel motivated to continue learning, especially because I want to return to Vienna.

Mari Mari means "hello" in Mapuzungun, and Mapuzungun, the Mapuche language, means "the language of the earth." Che means "people," and kaflu is "blue." Mapuches, meaning "the people of the earth," said if we learn Spanish while we are in Argentina, we need to learn Mapuzungun while in Bariloche. Now, four days is pretty short to learn a new language, but I promise I'll remember the few words that I learned! 

Now that final exams are in, my dorm room empty, and first year of college complete, it’s time for Salamanca!!

While I was always bent on doing a study abroad while in university, I wasn't really particular about where I ended up. Though I decided to do the program in Granada rather arbitrarily (since I knew one person who had done it before), my experiences during the past semester have definitely confirmed that Granada was a great fit for me. Here are just twenty moments when I was grateful that I ended up spending my study abroad in this small city in the south of Spain. 

Here I am, terrified, 3 days away from my travel to an entirely new world (or so it seems to little old me). For most of my life, I’ve been rather stagnant – born in Houston, TX, moved a whopping two hours away to Austin, and remained there for college as well. For me, travel never was much of a reality due to my financial situation. However, upon deciding to make the financially responsible decision to stay in my hometown for college, I knew that studying abroad was an absolute necessity for me to balance that out.

Hello there all you Italian lovers,