(My first full day out wearing The Shoes to the Dublin Flea Market.)

This past week of orientation activities have run the gamut from being extremely social and Western (read: ice skating and disco bowling) to as traditionally Dutch as possible (read: apple pie, clogs, and gouda). I can’t believe it’s only been one week since I was on a flight with a stewardess asking me a lot of questions in a language I’d never heard a word of before. (I just sort of nodded until she realized I had no idea what she was talking about.) Each individual day has gone by so quickly, but somehow we haven’t been here very long at all.

It has been about three weeks since I landed in Vienna, but I feel as though I have been here for months. This is due partly, I think, to the three-week German language intensive that is nearing its end, but more to Vienna itself. Indeed, time seems to move slower here than in America, where I plan my days down to the minute and aim to get from one place to the next as fast as possible.

So we went hiking (!!! I went hiking in Sierra Nevada. It was wild, guys. It was wild.) and we were given two choices for our time there. I could have either chosen the shorter, easier path, which was more aesthetically pleasing and less physically challenging, or the harder, longer route which was definitely physically challenging alongside it's respective aesthetics. Feel free to guess which one I chose. 

Of all the things to remind me of home, I did not expect hockey to be one of them when I decided to study abroad on the French Riviera.

Studying abroad sounds like a helluvalot of fun, you fantasize, as you scroll through the list of programs that IES Abroad has to offer.

Before I begin, I think it needs to be clarified and brought into harsh light that I am not ironically writing about keeping healthy and staying fit while abroad, but the very act of writing this blog post is ironic.

1) Freshman year, I was that girl that solely survived on stale off-brand Lucky Charms, chocolate milk, and Kraft Mac & Cheese. And yes, if I’m desperate or miserable enough, I still revert back to these dismal nutrition habits.

Bonjour!

My first weekend at Paris took place on an Open Bus Tour that the program gave us tickets for. We got to hop on and off a bus that would stop at all the big tourist attractions. It was perfect for trying to sightsee in the cold weather. A group of girls I had met during the orientation decided to meet up at a metro stop by the Notre Dame to see the famous cathedral and then start the bus tour there. Here’s are the pictures of the places we got to see.