After all the research I did prior to arriving in Buenos Aires, there’s still so much to learn about the city. Firstly, it is in fact a city. I’m not quite sure what I pictured before arriving but it was not a massive and sprawling metropolis that I viewed out of the window of the airplane. I had read about how important and accessible public transportation was and the different barrios of the city but still had not made the connection of how truly large this city is.

The Tiputini River in the Amazon Rainforest

Freiburg is beginning to feel like home and I thought I would share the goodbye letter I wrote to Madrid in an attempt to compare and contrast my study abroad experiences so far.

"Madrid, my goodbye in writing

My biggest fear is routine -- getting stuck doing the same thing over and over until one day you look back and wonder where the time has gone. I fear looking back on my life and thinking I could’ve done more with it. That’s becoming more and more obvious here in Spain. I feel like I’ve learned and done as much this past month and a half as I have the past year or two at home. Why? Probably because I’m here in a new city, with easy access to a lot of cool places, and basically zero responsibility.

It's easy to get swept up in the elegance of the baroque architecture throughout Vienna, but taking an architecture course gives you an opportunity to appreciate more modernist styles.

I have learned that most trips start on an odd note, this time it began at 6:20 A.M. on an Air Lingus flight with a bunch of rowdy 28-year old boys shouting in front of me and my friends. But what bothered me most was the boy sitting in front of me who had a grotesque pimple on his neck.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit the Island of Santa Cruz. It’s weird to think, but the atmosphere was so different there. Where I live on San Cristobal is a small town where everyone knows everyone. I am sure Santa Cruz is the same way but it was so much more touristy. It was heavily populated, had more restaurants and shops. Getting to Santa Cruz was not how I expected it. I knew there was some sort of boat ferry transporting people back and forth but when I saw the boat I was a little thrown off.