I’d been feeling somewhat limited and exhausted this semester when it came to the way I portrayed my time here. It’s been easier to write on a surface level and only talk about what I know others want me to say. Everyone wants to hear that everything is constantly magical and exciting. I end up often restricting myself and feeling inauthentic. I don't want to reduce my experiences to exoticism and superficialities like I’m living some kind of Eat, Pray, Love fairytale.

There are only five days left in this study abroad program and I am astonished at how many things I've accomplished that I never imagined I would accomplish abroad.

Rome is home to many different and amazing festivals and holidays.

My flagship blog post for this summer: hello, welcome! My name is Kelly Crewse, nice to meet ya. I'm a rising senior at Indiana University studying anthropology and educational studies with a focus on museum studies and bioanthropology. I'm an avid tv show fan (talk to me about Game of Thrones theories and you'll have my heart) and a distracted fiction writer. I'm an eternal optimist and friendly all around.

During the time since I left Siena, I have thought about my entire experience quite a bit.  No words can ever truly describe all that I saw and experienced during my time abroad.  At 20 years old I had the unique opportunity to see a different way of life and challenge myself beyond anything I ever thought I was capable of.  I gained a tremendous amount of knowledge along the way about art, history, culture, and language.  I saw the beauty in traveling to new places to experience different cultures and

Officially, we are a month of the program ending, and I am a little before three weeks back in the United States. I'm settled in Chicago now, ready to start a summer of working and exploring somewhere new. 

In the beginning of May, my dear friend and housemate Sparrow and I flew to Dublin for a quick weekend in the Motherland.

Buenos Aires was a city I knew I would visit the moment I was accepted and enrolled to this program. I had no idea what to expect but I really wanted to visit my friend and that I wanted to continue exploring South America.

So I've been home for about a week now, and I still not exactly sure what I can say about my return. I've been putting off this post, waiting for something, like obvious symptoms of "reverse culture shock" or missing a huge part of my weekly routine that doesn't exist here at home, but I don't think anything like that has actually happened. So far, it seems like I wasn't gone for too long. Life at home hasn't changed, so I'm not sure what kind of differences I should be looking for or noticing.

Routine. Some of us are bound to it with steel wire. Others float free, each day existing as a blank canvas. 

Isn't living on another continent for four months a way of breaking routine? An escape from the mundane schedules we find ourselves stuck too at home?

Why is it that when we spend significant time in one place we find ourselves falling into a routine? Is it comfort? Is it familiarity? Is it habit?

Maybe routine is a good thing, acting as a guide for us each day, ensuring were productive and oriented.