When friends return to their home universities from their study abroad programs, it seems like they’ve not only visited every city in all of Europe but also gotten to know their program’s city like the back of their hands, and had a fantastic time every moment they were outside of the United States. A whole semester sounds like a long time, so before I came to Spain this sounded quite attainable, but as soon as orientation began in Salamanca I realized this couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

Although I’ve only been in Granada for about three weeks now, I can already feel myself falling in love with Spain. I can say with confidence, however, that I am definitely still in the awkward tourist phase. I trip over the cobblestones on the reg, am shameless with my camera, and have yet to master the art of getting anywhere on time. Progress in these areas will be made… eventually. For now, I have stories to tell.

It hit me that I am leaving to go abroad at exactly 8:58 this morning, two days before departure. I opened an email my new RA sent me that included the orientation week schedule. The email left me with a rather unsettling feeling in my stomach. This led me to start frantically shopping, in realization that I should probably have started packing earlier.

Happy Belated  (or not!) Valentines Day!

Many people assume that Valentines Day is a worldly celebrated tradition. In Spain, the actual “lovers day” is called La Diada de Sant Jordi and is not until April. So, for the first time, I  enjoyed a V day that was chocolate and rose-free. I spent a wonderful weekend with my new friends, exploring the city, and feeling in-love in a whole new way.

Among the many things that I did this weekend, I spent an amazing night at the cooking workshop organized by IES:

This was meant to be posted last week but I had some trouble with my account – sorry for the delay!

This day has finally arrived; It’s the day where I can no longer put off packing. I forgot to remember that packing is an essential chore before leaving the country, and now I’m facing the daunting task of deciding which pair of boots is going to be most essential to take abroad. It’s a funny feeling to have something to do after having been at home for the past two months with mindless chores being the highlight of each day.

After only a short day in Rabat, the rest of my first two weeks in Morocco were spent in the city of Fez. Here is a video of my time spent there, including everyday walks, the best sights, some day trips, and some great people!

I can’t believe I’m in New Zealand!!  I arrived on Thursday, February 13th around 11:30am New Zealand time.  The flights were long and somewhat uncomfortable, but not as bad as I expected them to be.  I had 3 flights and the longest flight was 13 hours.  That one was the worst, but it was overnight, so I slept most of the time.  I’ve been here 5 days now but I feel like it’s been longer because I’ve already made a bunch of friends and we’ve done so much every day.