It's official.  The weeks of blazing heat have come to an end and crisp fall weather has arrived!  This change in the seasons made for the perfect biking weather so naturally my friends and I had to take advantage!  This weekend consisted of two bike trips: one to the nearby Broek in Waterland, and one to the island of Texel (which involved more transportation than just a bike!)  The bike to Broek was one of my favorite day trips so far!

One of the reasons why I fell in love so quickly with the idea of studying abroad in Italy is that you can’t help but run into a unique, charming town every 50 kilometers or so (say that in your Rick Steves’ voice). I mentioned this in my last post about planning day trips, but Milan has a geographic location that lends itself well to easy journeys around Northern Italy.

I have officially been abroad for over a month, and can say that other than contracting a form of the Italian flu/common cold combination, I am having the time of my life. Pro Tip: load up on vitamins and sleep while being abroad. Just because you're in a different country doesn't mean that your body stops needed the essentials. While studying abroad is clearly a time to pursue academic interests and remain healthy (still working on this), it is also a time to see the world.

Last weekend, we set out on our Great Wall of China trip. We left Beijing at around 10 in the morning, and we drove around 3 hours until we reached the Great Wall at Jinshanling. The day was beautiful, not particularly hot at the beginning, but it surely was when we started going up the stairs later on. We all had so much fun taking pictures and exploring that part of the Great Wall that had been restored. There was a woman trying to sell basically anything (T-shirts, water, food, tissues…).

My love and I are celebrating 1 month together.

As I mentioned briefly in my last blog post, many of the questions I had about academics and such were not really answered until over the summer, when I was filling out a bunch of online forms for IES Abroad. I thought that it might be helpful for anyone who might be interested in the Paris French Studies program for me to provide some more specific information about academics. Here is a photo of the master schedule of when all of the courses at the IES Abroad Center meet:

So far, IES Abroad is proving to be a very good program provider, and the Paris French Studies program is extremely well organized. I thought that orientation was very helpful, although I thought that it kind of lasted longer than it needed to. I feel like most of the questions I had about studying abroad and the program itself, such as questions about housing and courses, were really not answered until I was in the midst of filling out a ton of online forms for IES Abroad.