June 23^rd was not any ordinary morning. The night before London received massive amounts of rain, shutting down train lines and causing severe delays, making the morning commute a disaster all over the city. Queues circled around the tube stations, angry Londoner, after angry Londoner just trying to make it to work on time. Except this morning it wasn’t just work they were racing to; many were going to the nearest polling station, to vote in the biggest referendum in modern history: to stay or leave the European Union.

English: I’ve been living in Barcelona for a month…?!?!?! Not sure how the first half of my time here is already over – in some ways it feels like I’ve been here forever and in others it feels like I’m just getting started. One of my goals when I left for Barcelona was to truly live in the moment – I know that sounds cliché, but this past school year I constantly felt like I was running out of my time. Being half way done with college really hit me and realizing how fast time really does go by was a huge reality check.

If you had the opportunity to do anything for three days in China, what would you do?

I should remind you, as I was reminded myself, that these seven weeks are far from an easy, breezy, luxurious vacation to South America for the summer. Part of me took for granted that I had the freedom to do as I pleased, when I pleased, and just because I pleased. This week, however, the class work has successfully inundated me. There is a paper due tomorrow as well as a test in my public health class, then a 10 minute presentation due the following day.

Let’s talk housing, because I don’t think I’ve touched on it yet, and where you’ll call home for eight weeks is an exciting part of studying abroad. I live in The Fizz, which is a student apartment complex about 20 minutes away from classes. I don’t have any roommates, so I get a bathroom, kitchen, and balcony all to myself. I have to say, The Fizz is a very snazzy facility, and I’m kind of glad my housing worked out the way it did.

Weeks I’ve been in Berlin: 5

Apologies for not posting this past week – I was busy with a writing assignment and an oral presentation so I didn’t have a chance to check in. You can expect two posts from me this week to make up for that!