So my entire experience here was been so incredible it is hard to imagine it getting any better and then a day like this past Saturday comes along to make it even more perfect. Our perfect day started with a quick train ride to Pisa. While it definitely was super touristy like everyone says, it was interesting to see a city with a more renaissance rather than medieval feel to it. And just like everywhere else we happened to find a little market with fresh food and cheese samples.

So where do I begin with this one. Well to start off there is no better food on this planet than Italian food.

So last weekend I had a small vacation from Siena and went to Barcelona to meet up with my friend Steph. For only spending a few days in Spain I got to see a good amount of the city and get a taste of the culture and experience the Spanish night life. Barcelona isn't like any other city I've seen before. While it definitely has modern aspects the architecture on the buildings that have been preserved isn't really identifiable and reminds me a bit of a Dr. Seuss- like world.

Just twenty miles outside of Barcelona, a little slice of heaven sits on the southwest coast of Catalonia. Sitges, an old fisherman’s village, is home to world famous events such as Carnival and the Sitges Film Festival. As summer slowly announces its arrival here in Barcelona, I decided to speed things up a bit and head south to Sitges for a healthy dose of vitamin D (sun) and Omega three’s (fresh seafood, of course). 

I recently went on a Nanzan organized trip to the Nagoya City Science Museum and Planetarium. It was my first time going on one of these Nanzan organized trips, but there have been many more from going to the Toyota Car Museum to the Ise Grand Shrine.

Many of my most recent posts have centered on the incredible people I’ve met here in Barcelona. Forming new relationships with the local people is an amazing experience — one I have continued to cultivate. However, today I want to share a little more about the city itself. I have been living in Barcelona for just over two months, and I’ve had the opportunity to explore some really cool places.

Studying abroad offers students an opportunity to extensively travel throughout Europe. Every weekend, groups of students take off for various European destinations. Whether it’s skydiving in Interlaken, Switzerland or exploring the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, students brilliantly take advantage of the ease of travel in Europe. Yet there is a peculiar foreign destination just outside of Europe that is gaining immense popularity with study abroad students: Morocco, Africa.

The last, and longest, stop of the ten day trip was Berlin – and it was incredible. Before getting there I didn’t really know what to expect from Berlin, since I had only really associated it with the Berlin wall. But it ended up being so much more awesome than I could have imagined! Of course we saw the typical sights: we visited the Berlin wall, went under the Brandenburg gate, spent a morning at Checkpoint Charlie, and the list goes on. But, during our free hours I was also able to go a bit off of the beaten path.