I am not quite sure how to go about with this post as this is my last one in Barcelona. For the first time since being here, I cannot find the words to describe how I am feeling. I haven’t even grasped that the semester is over, and that I am leaving soon. It feels like yesterday that I was meeting my host mom all flustered, introducing myself to my roommate, and unpacking my bags into the closet. Time flies, is the understatement of the century. Before studying abroad, I vividly remember feeling nervous and anxious.

Three and a half months seems like a long time to be in a new city, but as my time of studying abroad comes to a close, I realize that it definitely is not at all. Though I made a list of all the activities and sites that I wanted to do in Barcelona during the semester, it was really impossible for me to do every single thing, especially with going to school, traveling on some weekends, and of course, resting as well. Below are a few things that I put on my Barcelona bucket list, but never got a chance to do.

This is going to be a long post so hold on tight.

The first and last time I did hula of my own volition was my last year of high school. The annual May Day holoku program was a big deal at my high school, and the best dancers vied for the coveted positions of the holoku queen and her court of princesses, each representing a different island of Hawaii.

At this moment I feel as if I am standing in front of a painting with a blindfold over my eyes.  I am very close to the painting, but cannot see it.  From reading about the painting on the internet, and hearing what people have told me about it, I have gathered a vague idea of what the painting looks like.  In two days, however, I will take off the blind fold when I travel to Nantes for the first time. 

There is always a very loaded anxiety before traveling. I’m spending a month traveling through Spain, Tunisia, and Morocco prior to starting the program. Upon talking about my travel plans with friends and family, I get a lot of questions like: “Where are you going? How will you get from place to place? What will you do when you’re there? What research have you done about each of the locations? What kinds of shoes will you wear? Who will you meet while you’re there? What is the first thing you will do when you get there?

Bonjour!

My name is Rosemary Newsome and I am studying abroad in Nice, France in Spring 2017.

“Are you sure?” Erin asked as she took out the shears. “Once I make the first cut you can’t change your mind.”

Fall semester finals ended a week earlier, and I was sitting in a hair salon in my hometown of Youngstown, Ohio. I was doing something I’d wanted to do for a very long time.

Leaving the comfort of the familiar to study abroad is like standing on the edge of a pool. Your toes are over the edge, the water sparkling below, and there’s this tug in your stomach begging you to jump.

 It’s not my first rodeo or time in China. You could say I am familiar with China, as I have gone back twice, once when I was 10 and then 16, however planning on studying there for four months is a whole new ball game. I was born in China and adopted when I was five months old. I’ve spent 20 years in Houston, Texas, growing up singing Christmas carols, eating hamburgers, and having second helpings of grits, which is a South Texas thing.