If you have ever heard of, or taken a course about Sienese history, you should be familiar with the Palio. The Palio is an intense horse race between contradas, or neighborhoods, which occurs two times a year: once in July, and once in August. The Palio is held in the Piazza del Campo, and almost all of Siena's residents come view it live (about 50,000 people). Although there are seventeen contradas, only ten compete in each race for safety purposes.

I cannot believe that I have been in Barcelona for a week; I have a constant in-between feeling that leads me to think that I’ve been here for weeks, but I still don’t know everything about Barcelona yet. This week has been a whirlwind and a rollercoaster of emotions. Being one of the two U of R students in this program, never having been so far away from my family and friends before, and not speaking a word of Spanish, I knew that the first couple of days would be a bit difficult in terms of adapting.

So far it's been 2 and a half weeks here in Vienna and I'm now confident to get anywhere using the U-Bahn.  So far, I have been to a few museums including the Austria's National Library.  One thing you realize are the intricate details on pretty much all the buildings and how museums are rich in history & culture of Vienna.  *Although I tried, pictures will never do it justice.  i went to the Schönbrunn Palace, Kunsthistorisches Musueam, Hofburg Palace, and inside many churches as well.

It has been an absolute whirlwind of a week in Milan, from orientation programming to navigating the city. I’m not really here to go into that—if you’re looking for something that will get you up to speed with how most people write about studying abroad and you’re not easily offended, check out my friend’s post here.

When I began the preliminary process of researching and exploring the possibility of studying in South Africa for nearly half a year, I received several mixed opinions. They ranged from, “Are you sure you want to go there? It’s like REALLY dangerous”, all the way to “Oh I knew a girl that studied in Cape Town… She loved it so much she never came back”. I talked to just about everyone I knew that had any relative connection to the country.

I often have trouble when reflecting back on my life just three, even four short weeks ago.

Bonjour from Paris. It's weird to think I'm currently living in France. That is just mind boggling for me to say now. I've been living in Paris, France for about a week now, although it feels like I've been here for an eternity, but that's something to blog about another day. Today I am here simply to talk about my teeny tiny little living space.

My first few days in Freiburg have been a whirlwind.  At some points it feels like I’ve been here for weeks, at others I will momentarily forget that I ever left home.  But the good news is that I survived the many tenuous hours of travel and successfully arrived alive and in one piece.