Click. Click. Click. Gravity presses my back against my seat. My entire body shakes, covered in a cold sweat. As my heart attempts to beat its way out of my chest, I question my decision making. Should I have done this?? The process of preparing for a semester abroad reminds me of the time I went on a rollercoaster with my brother.

It’s officially been one week since I left my cozy little suburb in Illinois and traveled across the pond to Dublin! Though it has been just a week, and I keep reminding myself of this fact over and over again, it already feels like I’ve been here for at least a month. The cafes and shops around me are becoming familiar, the swans a part of my everyday routine. And while it’s been comfortable and homey in so many ways, it’s also been a complete and utter rush.

Besides the fact that pedestrians do not have the right of way here (which can be troublesome to an egocentric walker like me), Dublin is a lovely place to be quaintly situated for the semester. The people are infinitely more friendly than your average American, ivy and fairytale foliage grow everywhere, and most streets are flooded by tea and pastries.

Welcome to my blog! My name is April Johnson and I am an undergraduate student studying at Harvard University. I am a pre-med concentrating (majoring) in Neurobiology and obtaining a secondary (minoring) in Astrophysics. At Harvard, I manage a café, serve as a production assistant at a theatre, and play on the women’s club soccer team. I was born in the Philippines and came to the United States when I was 7 years old.

Today is my second day in Barcelona, and it's the perfect day to write this blog post.

Going into the IES Abroad Vienna program, I am ignorant of most things. I don’t know who my private horn teacher will be, I haven’t met any of the people I’ll be living with, I’m not sure whether I’ll do well enough during my “on-site” audition to get into the Performance Workshop, I don’t know what my weekly or daily schedule will look like, and I don’t know how to speak German beyond “Ich komme aus Amerika,” which I’m sure people will be able figure out on their own.

After endless hours of traveling, lugging around 100 lbs of clothes, and eating airplane food, I have officially arrived in Barcelona, Spain. It's a strange feeling when you step off the plane. Besides your body-clock being messed up and there being no way to contact people, you suddenly feel a rush. You feel a sense of independence, even though you'll be relying on Google Maps most of the time. It hasn't settled in that this is home for the next four months.

Growing up I never traveled. The most traveling I did was to South Padre Island on weekends with my family; it was only a fifteen minute ride from my house. There was simply not enough money to do much traveling. It wasn’t until I went to college that I was able to go outside the vicinity of my hometown and even then I was just 5 hours away from home. A year ago, I remember how Austin was such a new world to me but never in a thousand years would I ever think that I would be studying abroad in Germany for a semester.

It has officially been a week of London. A chaotic, wonderful week. Since walking off the plane and through customs, there has been barely a moment of rest. Orientation hit first which began with a lot of information about the program and city, all whilst my body was still adjusting to London time, and ended with several excursions. My advice on field trips? Take them! Especially if they’re free. It might not seem like something that you would plan to do yourself but that’s part of the benefit of them.