A week between our group’s awesome day trip to Toledo and the arrival of my parents to visit me, I’m wondering whether I should be taking advantage of being in the heart of Europe. Many of my fellow IES Abroad students have already made or planned trips to Morocco, Italy, Germany (for Oktoberfest–I’m jealous), and a bunch of other places. I never really considered traveling throughout Europe while studying abroad, but now that I’m here, why not?
After waking up this morning on an overnight field trip, I realized that something was wrong with my eyes. A quick look in the mirror told me that something was VERY wrong with my eyes, which scared me because I immediately thought of how impossible it would be for me to set up an appointment on a Friday for a next day visit. After talking with my program advisor, she told me she would take me to the eye doctor as soon as we returned from the field trip we were on, which was 4 hours from the doctor’s office.
As midterms come to a close and fall break approaches, all anyone can think about is Europe. Milan, Madrid, Barcelona, Florence, Paris, and Amsterdam – these are among the places to which some of my classmates are going. As much as I’ve emphasized traveling in my previous blog posts, I want to instead devote this one to pointing out the importance of staying in one place.
This weekend I visited Rome with one of my roommates. Besides Cinque Terre and Milan, Rome is definitely my new favorite Italian location. It was a big city, but still filled with culture, and it was also relaxing which was very nice. We stayed with her extended Italian family members in their apartment in the city. They were so kind and it was so great to have a home cooked meal, and of course great tour guides! Only one of them spoke English so we also worked on out Italian A LOT this weekend, which was really fun.
We went to Tuscany last weekend and it was beyond beautiful! We stayed in Siena and I fell in love with the deep colors and uneven cobblestone that lined the city. It really took you back in time and made you appreciate the Italian culture. We went out to two amazing Italian style dinners with IES Abroad and it was a great bonding time for our program.
20.20 Uhr
“Call me Barb.” I said as the kids arrived at Camp Longbridge. It was Halloween weekend according to Kate, and we were going to do it big—pumpkin carving, trick-or-treating, bobbin’ for apples, and a haunted cellar!
On Friday afternoon, the adventure began when I met Anna at the Hauptbahnhof to make our way to Switzerland. We had both applied to be camp counselors at Longbridge, where Swiss German kids go to practice their English language and develop a sense of English-speaking cultures.
