I am really not great at bargaining.

Anytime I have to do it I get stressed. If I want to buy something in a shop in the medina, I have to work up the will to do it over several days or even weeks. Don’t even ask me to bargain for a taxi – luckily almost all of the taxis within Rabat have meters so I don’t have to worry about it.

A part of my study abroad experience that’s been ever-present in my daily life but hasn’t yet made an appearance on this blog is how my gender has been translated from English to Spanish, in both language and culture. In English, I use they/them pronouns, and go by my last name. While I still enjoy a good flowy skirt as much as the next person and adore florals, in the States it’s easy to explain and express my nonbinary gender, because English accommodates those concepts.

Hey again!

IES Abroad Freiburg LAS (Language and Area Studies) provides two student trips in the semester and this trip to Berlin was one of them. It is not a mandatory trip; however, since we would be learning so much about Germany in our classes, I thought it would be a great opportunity to go see the capital and walk the grounds of German history.

I learned a lot during this trip and thoroughly enjoyed my time there! Here are a few highlights:

“Oh no! Not classes!” Yes, classes. And although it’s often not necessarily my favorite topic to talk about, it is necessarily a part of studying abroad, really half of the proverbial word equation, if you will. And although we tend to focus a lot more on the abroad part, classes can still play an important role in our experience abroad, and although we shouldn’t let them dampen that experience, we also shouldn’t ignore them.

With only a few weeks left in our program, Ireland is beginning to feel like a second home. While I often try to volunteer - even in small ways - in my local communities at home and at school, I hadn’t really had an opportunity to give back to my temporary home. Our IES Abroad Community Council offered an incredible opportunity: visiting Wicklow for a community beach clean up and seal release.

So my daily Chinese class here in Shanghai has been one of the best class experiences I’ve ever had. The main reason for this is because my teacher always made class so exciting and engaging. Even though the class was Monday-Thursday at 8:30 a.m. I was always excited to wake up in the mornings. Sometimes I would even wake up earlier to bike a few miles to school. After about four weeks of the best classes I’ve had in my life, our teacher had to resign because she was unfortunately too busy with other projects.

While it was snowing nearly eight inches back home in Wisconsin, I was lucky enough to spend my Easter weekend in sunny, beautiful Rome. I was there for four days, and got to spend them with one of my best friends from high school who is currently studying abroad there. I was a bit worried about the city being busy to the point of insanity during Easter, but I can honestly say that it wasn’t that bad. With a bit of planning and a bit of patience, Easter in Rome was a breeze.

Last weekend was a long one with Easter and another national holiday combined and of course my friends and I had to plan a trip. Looking up different places to go, we finally decided on Mendoza.

Mendoza is on the west side of Argentina, very close to Santiago, Chile and it is famous with its wineries and its production of Malbec. You get a view of the Andes wherever you go and there is so much natural beauty around the town.