One of my favorite Dr. Seuss books, Oh, the Places You’ll Go, begins with the stanza,

“Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You're off to Great Places!

You're off and away!”  

Even being a marine science major at my home university, I’ve never had the opportunity to scuba dive with a class before. Here, I’ve already had the opportunity to go on three dives with my classes already with more to come. Through these experiences, I’ve learned to dive scientifically rather than simply recreationally. Instead of of simply observing the general splendor of the underwater world, we set an objective beforehand and keep this in mind throughout the dive.

The stunning La Scala Theatre is 5 minute walk from the Duomo metro station, and if you are ever in Milan, you must stop in and take a tour or see a show. There are ballets, operas and recitals held all year long and this past week I was lucky enough to catch two shows. On Monday, I went to see Diana Damrau, a famous coloratura soprano known for singing "Queen of the Night" in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. She performed a set of Richard Strauss songs and Hugo Wolf lied.

After an eleven-hour connecting flight from Amsterdam (in a middle seat, no less), I could not have been more ready to arrive in Cape Town. Stepping off the plane, I was immediately overjoyed by the warm weather- a temperate 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Also knowing that I was taking my first steps on the African continent was absolutely thrilling. My next first impression, however, was the intensity of the water crisis in Cape Town, reinforced by all types of portraits, murals, and posters throughout the airport-- but more on that in a later post.

After being fined on the metro in Budapest for having the wrong ticket, and handing over practically all of my cash intended for the weekend, I felt as if my entire trip had been ruined just three hours after arriving in Hungary. Traveling to a foreign country comes with culture shock. And it’s easy to be overwhelmed with this shock after dealing with a not so ideal situation. At the time, handing over my money on the metro made me feel as if I should have never attempted to leave Amsterdam in the first place.

After arriving in Shanghai one week ago, I already feel like we’ve been here for months – in the best way possible. Our language partners and the staff here have been incredibly helpful in assisting us with getting our bearings and becoming acquainted with both the Shanghai Jiao Tong University campus as well as the Fudan University campus. On our first weekend, they took us to both campuses and we got to walk around and learn how to get from the 地铁 (subway) to our classrooms and back to the apartment.

I grew up speaking Spanish, English, and Spanglish as a little Chicanita in Santa Ana, CA. As a daughter of immigrants, I am proud to carry all three tongues and being able to to have this connection to my parents, family, and homeland of Mexico. However, I wanted to know more of the world, so I decided to take French my first year of college. The similarities between French and Spanish threw me off the whole semester--my professor scolded me for vocally rounding out the French words when I spoke due to my Spanish-speaking background.