Bonjour from Normandie!

Before I came to France, I was really worried I'd have to give up my favorite foods for a solid 4 months, things like curry, burritos, and rice dishes. I even asked my brothers what kind of foods I should expect to be eating, since they've travelled to France before. They said that Mexican food was very rare, but Asian food was fairly easy to find. That got my hopes up somewhat. These past few months, I've been exploring Nantes for cheap, weird, and delicious foods.

This past weekend (March 19/20), all of us students took a trip to Caen and the beaches of Normandy, two extremely important places in the history of WWII. After arriving in Caen, we had a little free time to explore the city. Unfortunately, I was starting to get sick so I mostly stayed in my room to rest. After that, we visited a museum showing the history of WWI, WWII, and even a small exhibit on the Cold War, Vietnam war, and Korean War. It was really interesting to see course of the wars through the eyes of Europe.

It has been exactly twenty-one days since I arrived in Freiburg. I want to tell you about the twenty incredible people I’ve met. I want to tell you about the streets I’ve wandered after class, the winding paths I’ve discovered through neighborhoods of colorful houses with tiny gardens. The conversations I’ve had with said twenty people, and the conversations I’ve wanted to have but couldn’t because of the language barrier. There’s so much to recount, and just over three weeks ago, I never imagined I’d be where I am now.

It’s hard to imagine a daily routine in Rio, I’ve been here more than month and no two days have been the same. While most of our days are unplanned, we still have classes to attend at the center. For the most part your classes will be the most consistent part of studying abroad, unless you join a club or an organization around the city. Even getting to and from classes can still be an adventure, but here’s my attempt at trying to document a regular weekday in Rio de Janeiro!

So it turns out that my plan to post consistently isn't quite working out. Between all of the traveling, meeting new people, seeing Rome, and all of the other amazing things that happen with study abroad, sometimes I forget to take a step back and reflect on everything that’s been going on.

Recently I had an amazing opportunity to travel outside of Italy for the first time. I was able to go Madrid, Spain for three days. It was an absolutely amazing experience.

One of the most enticing things for me when deciding on IES Abroad Beijing was the remarkable IES Abroad-sponsored trip to a unique place in China. For our trip, we traveled to one of the southern most provinces of China: Yunnan.