I shifted around in my now-uncomfortable bus seat that I’d been sitting in for the past three hours and looked out the window through the sheets of rain with squinted eyes trying to spot one person. Suddenly I saw him: our guide running to the bus with an umbrella in one hand and a stack of our American passports in the other. The bus lurched to a start and we finally crossed over from Spain into Morocco.

Song: “First Blood” by Kavinsky

We are really getting into the homestretch now! I have three weeks left and man do I feel the pressure! Things are still happening right and left and I am trying my best to keep it all in my head at least long enough to snap a photo and remember the story to be able to share with you all here.

We are really getting into the homestretch now! I have three weeks left and man do I feel the pressure! Things are still happening right and left and I am trying my best to keep it all in my head at least long enough to snap a photo and remember the story to be able to share with you all here.

I turned 21 in Barcelona, and it was very different than the 21st birthday celebrations you imagine having in the United States. My friends and I said “cheers” in a quiet cafe, and then walked back to the Airbnb to call my family. 

It’s funny to think about the traditions we give meaning to in each country. Nothing was different about me, especially in Europe, but I turned the age that you spend all of your teen years looking forward to.

I'm back! Sorry for the huge delay in posts, but I have been having some technical difficulties all semester with posting. We've finally figured it out though, and I can't wait to spam you with all I've learned this semester! With only 3 weeks left in Freiburg, I'm starting to get incredibly nostalgic and I only look back on these 3 months with the fondest of memories. Here's a little bit about the wonderful neighborhood that I live in, Vauban. 

Studying abroad forces me to think about topics that I otherwise wouldn't consider. I find myself walking home from class, so sincerely focused on a politician born centuries ago who walked my same streets, or the personality of a controversial Pope who once worked in my same neighborhood. 

Recently, Federica Giacomini, an art restorer and member of the Superintendence for the Cultural Heritage of Rome, came to speak to students at IES Abroad Rome. She gave a lecture titled “Conservation as an instrument of knowledge.”

For a while now I’ve wanted to write a piece about some of the cultural differences I’ve experienced here, but didn’t know how to do it. A list would get the point across, but wouldn’t tell the story of how it feels to live through differences. I’m hoping with this different style of writing that I can convey to you what some of the cultural differences feel like for me.

It's finals week and you know what that means: no sleep, unhealthy habits, stress, and papers... except I'm in Argentina and we play by different rules here. As the week before finals came to an end and we had to start thinking about shacking up in a café and hiding out to write papers and pour over notes, I took an alternate route. Instead of spending my last week in my books I spent it taking study breaks; doing things I hadn't, embarking on stupid adventures, and getting in my usual laughs.