The semester is strangely coming to an end; time has flown by!

So far I’ve been to France, Spain, Netherlands, Ireland, and so many amazing places in Italy itself! I have definitely adjusted well to living in Europe, but have also begun to appreciate my own culture and the US! It will be a bittersweet goodbye in just three and a half weeks. The hardest part about leaving will be leaving the great people I have met here.

So my roommates and I headed off to Dublin last weekend! It was beyond amazing and definitely a house favorite as far as destinations go, thus far! We haven’t taken our Dublin sweatshirts off since we got back. We went on a 12 hour Dublin tour the first day we were there and were able to see the Cliffs of Moher, Galway, River Shannon, and a bunch of other cool spots outside of Dublin.

I’m writing this cuddled next to my mother, eating Americanized Chinese food, and watching Scandal! It feels so good and I’m so glad to be back with my family and friends. But I miss Sydney SO much already. There are the superficial things I miss such as the weather and beaches. But more than that I miss my Aussie friends and the life I created in Sydney over the past four months. Who knows how long I will be homesick for Australia. Maybe until I visit again.

In the spirit of continuing with my bucket list of things to do before I leave Australia, I finally went INSIDE the Sydney Opera House for the ballet, La Bayadere (The Temple Dancer in french). I am a major fan of the arts in all forms so  was very excited to finally see a ballet (and in the world renowned Sydney Opera House at that). The Opera House is incredibly spacious and ornately decorated.

“In the spring of 2013, I spent a semester studying in Rome. That March, I walked down the Via della Conciliazione to St. Peter’s Square, where I attended the inauguration of Pope Francis. This semester, I am in Berlin and last Sunday I walked down Unter den Linden toward the Brandenburg Gate to participate in another historical event. Thousands of people, young and old, swarmed the streets of Berlin on the night of Nov. 9 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Before you depart to study abroad, you’re most likely going to be inundated with documents from your program that give you advice on how to dress like a local and certain things you should do or not do while in your host country. For the most part, this information is helpful as it gives you an initial look into the culture you’re going to experience, but it can discourage you in a sense as well.

My program, like pretty much any other study abroad program, includes trips organized by our advisors that are meant to both show us some cool places and teach us about the culture surrounding us. The problem is, while we get to go on these trips, I’ve hardly seen many of my program-mates work as hard as the program advisors in order to go on trips themselves.

As part of the 3^rd course, Human Rights, we all got the opportunity to travel to Bocas del Toro, Panamá. The goal of our travel was to see how tourism development is affecting indigenous communities on the islands of Bocas del Toro. In addition, we also got to examine how the human rights of these indigenous communities have been violated. We spoke with indigenous community members, local indigenous leaders, and indigenous women activists.