I came to Milan thinking that a six week summer program would be perfect for me because I would still get to experience living abroad, but would not be gone for too long. I was wrong. Six weeks was not nearly enough. Dare I say my time here has been perfect? To top it all off, Milan was the live Snapchat story, and my video submission was accepted! I guess I can die now seeing as one of my biggest life goals has been realized.

Because so much of my Amsterdam/Netherlands experience was experiencing the culture of the city by going to different museums, I thought for this blog post I’d do a review of all of the museums I’ve been to in Amsterdam, and consequently a list of just a few of the many many many museums that are here.

Looking back, I don't think I met any of my prior expectations before my trip to Barcelona - I exceeded all of them. I only asked for one thing... For myself to submerge myself into the culture and explore new places within Europe. I never asked to make incredible friends and meet amazing people, I never asked to develop a great relationship with my host parents, and I never asked to fall in love completely with a city. These past six weeks have flown by and I really don't know where the time went.

I wanted to wait until the tail-end to do this post (can you believe that it's already the tail-end?!) because throughout my trip, IES has taken us on some pretty awesome "excursions"! Excursions are field trips that we take on Fridays to other cities in the south of France.

As classes here at Bogazici are slowly winding down and the end of the term is near, it's a good time to revisit some of the goals I set for summer. After all, if we don't dedicate some time to reflection and growth in the main 3 month break in the entire academic year, where would we be able to find time? Possibly like some of you, I started summer with great plans- to explore, to discover, to pursue all sorts of noble and exciting goals. One of these goals seemed-- in comparison-- rather mundane. I waned to catch up on reading. Reading what?

During the application process through IES, I struggled to figure out my preferences as far as a room. IES Cape Town offers four choices for accomodation: a large house, a small house, apartments, and UCT dorms. After much deliberation, I chose to live in the UCT dorms, and honestly it was the best decision I could have made. For the duration of my stay, I am at Obz Square, which is located on Main Road in Observatory. 

This time tomorrow, I will be on an airplane, on my way to Cape Town, South Africa.

Finally, a month after my big European adventure, it's safe to say things feel normal again. I didn't come home a different person or knowing the secret to a life of happiness; however, I have found a deeper appreciation for cultural differences. Everyone is a product of their environment, and actually visiting different countries really helps one understand why certain people act a certain way or have certain opinions. If I had to chose one lesson as my take home message it would be that; you have to understand the place to understand the person.