Amsterdam has been my home for nearly 2 months.

SOS: I am a freshman again.

Two years after my initial freshmen orientation (and one year after being on the other side of it as an RA), I am again in the same position of attending well-meaning, if a bit forced, social events, getting lost in the (admittedly small) campus, and making the acquaintance of so many people whose names I will inevitably fail to remember.

Hello everyone!

I can’t believe it’s been a couple of weeks since I last wrote; it has been so busy with settling into my classes both at IES Abroad and at UVic as well as my internship. While many people that I know have travelled to different countries on the weekends since being in Barcelona, I have been taking my lack of planning for trips to get to know Barcelona and its culture.

As our journey through Asia continued, Natasha and I continued to make our way to Tokyo, Japan. From Singapore, we took a 7-hour flight directly to Tokyo. Once we landed, we grabbed our bags and headed out to find a cab.

I finally ventured outside of Spain!!

Since deciding to go abroad I knew I wanted to see as many countries as I could in the four short months I had in Europe. As soon as I heard that my friends Cynthia and Emily had signed up for a half marathon in Lisbon I knew I had to join in.

I expected it to be a normal, relaxing trip to another country where I'd do some site seeing and have fun and though most of my trip was like this there were still some not so great moments.

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!