So after travelling around France and Europe, I've picked up some tips and tricks in terms of packing, planning, and the actual trip. So here's my list of what I think are the most important things to consider and remember when planning your next voyage.

This past week was my spring vacation and it was fantastic! It was way more relaxing than I thought it would've been, which was definitely needed after almost 4 straight weeks of midterms and essays. This time on vacation it was just me and my friend Erin. We started off in Paris Friday-Monday, staying at a family friend's apartment. Since we arrived a little later in the evening, Friday was spent relaxing and grabbing groceries. Saturday, we went to Sacré-cœur, a huge and beautiful cathedral.

I think there comes a point in every part of the semester when you start to reflect on where you are and what you’re doing, and for me it seems this point has finally arrived. Maybe it is because I’ve realized how much Santiago reminds me of Chicago, or because I feel as overwhelmed here as I did back home – I’m not sure how this feeling of “what am I doing here?” came about, but I’m positive I’m not the only one who’s felt this way and I’m sure I won’t be the last.

I’ve spent the last two weekends in Madrid enjoying the beautiful weather and long days before two consecutive weekends of travel – I head off this weekend to Dublin with a good family friend and then to Oslo with a Bowdoin friend the following weekend! It’s crazy to think that I have exactly a month until I depart, so I’m doing my best to make the most of every remaining moment abroad.

I don’t believe that Feta is officially the national cheese of South Africa, but the way it’s used here it may as well be.

"'In what way does China problematise and illustrate the criticism of the global north/south binary?'

One weekend I had the pleasure of getting to climb an old volcano called Imbabura. First we took buses on a Saturday morning to a town underneath the mountain near the popular town of Otavalo. After stopping at the grocery store to stock up on some camping food, we headed to the town that leads right up to the trail and walked for a couple of hours to the trail head. There was a small abandoned home where some local kids were hanging out and listening to music.

Yesterday, I moved out of my apartment. In a frenzy of cleaning and packing and multiple trips to the recycling bins, I said goodbye. To my flatmates, to the bed that I have called mine for the past four months, to the spot on the couch that overlooks the main street, to the neighborhood of Rathmines, to Dublin. It's not an official goodbye, not yet. I don't leave Europe until the 26th of April (I'm writing this in Galway, on the west coast of Ireland), but the Dublin that I have grown attached to is gone.

I don’t believe I’ve yet told you about my friend Ryan. If you look at the photo of my friends that I put up in my first blog post, Ryan is the red-headed one in the T-shirt with the rude Fifty Shades of Grey quote on it. The writing on the shirt is small and mostly blocked by my head, so you can’t actually read it, but that’s not the point. It’s what you might call a character detail. Ryan is what you might call a character.