[Transcribed from video] Hallo, ich heiẞ Naomi und ich komme aus New York. Ich studiere Mathematik und Informatik in Atlanta bei Emory aber nicht dieses Semester. Ich bin aufgeregt, weil ich nach Wien für ein Musikprogramm gehe! Jetzt spiele ich Klavier für euch.

At the beginning of my semester, I wrote 5 questions that I hoped I would be able to answer by the end of the semester. Naturally, nothing went as planned. The streets looked nothing like how I pictured them, and I could have never predicted the sheer uniqueness of Moroccan culture. 

How will communication with the host family go?

Today is my first day back at school in Indiana. I’ve been home for a few weeks now, and Italy seems like a dream. It’s hard to believe I lived in those places, and experienced all of those amazing things.

I’m having a hard time getting ready for this semester. It’s dropped below zero degrees Farenheit almost every single day here, and I hate the cold. It’s 51 degrees in Rome right now.

I have officially been home for over a week and I’m still not sure how I ended up here or how four months went by in what felt like maybe two weeks. I was welcomed back into the house by our 3 dogs and 4 cats, who made sure I received sufficient snuggles in the time between my arrival and that of my family two days later. It simultaneously feels like nothing has changed and so much has. To be honest, even when my friends get overly excited to see me, I feel underwhelmed because I don’t feel like I was gone for as long as I know I was.

And so here we are, at the end of the road of my long trip to New Zealand.  I have been back home for just over a month at this point, and I have to say re-entry was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  I hadn’t been expecting how quickly I settled back into a routine at home, but I guess that’s due to the fact that four days after I got home I started an internship (best way to get over 18-hour jet lag!).

This is the second video of my cousin and my road trips’ through the south island.  Here is the route we took (unfortunately we couldn’t make it all the way north to Abel Tasman, but there's always next time!)

Christchurch -> Hokitika via Arthurs Pass -> Haast (via Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers) -> Wanaka -> Queenstown -> Te Anau/Milford Sound -> the Catlins -> Dunedin -> Lake Tekapo -> Christchurch 

It was an amazing journey, and I am so glad that my cousin was able to come visit me.  

And so, we have made it to the last few weeks of my time in New Zealand.  After finals ended (to be fair - I only had one final that was essay based) I had a few weeks off for a bit of solo travel.  I ended up flying to Wellington for a few days, enjoying a few farewell dinners with our IES Abroad group and other friends I made along the way, and visiting my favorite Christchurch spots for the last time.  For the last two weeks I was in NZ, my cousin came to visit, and we went on a huge road trip all the way through the south island.

In just a very few short hours, I will embark on my study abroad journey to Barcelona, Spain for four months. My name is Caroline, but most of my friends call me Caro, and I am a junior at Indiana University studying Marketing with a minor in Media Advertising. I am from Los Angeles and my hobbies and interests pretty much some up who I am. I absolutely love spending time at the beach, my dogs, hiking, running, soccer, cheese, and binge watching Netflix (but since I plan to work in entertainment it's considered research, right?).

          Before going abroad, we were all warned about both culture shock and reverse culture shock. Although I was definitely more concerned about the former, I have definitely had a harder time dealing with the latter. Coming back is usually a tougher transition than people anticipate; this certainly was the case for me. It’s not only the weird process of transitioning back to your life at home, it’s dealing with the sticky and strange situation of being a different person back in your same old environment.