Important things for any student abroad to establish about the city where he or she is staying are: Food, Transportation, Communication. And here’s how IES Orientation helped with each of those.

After spending last weekend at Disneyland Paris (you are never too old for Disneyland!) I figured that this weekend I should probably spend my time doing something a little more educational. With 50 other BIA students I left Paris behind (way too early in the morning in my opinion) for a weekend adventure to Normandy.

The first week of September: overwhelmingly busy orientation. Very, very, very busy.  Typical schedule: Language class starts at 9:10 (which means we need to be up before 8 or so) and ends at 13:40. Then we usually have reunion or sessions until 2:30 or so. Walk back home, and it’s 3:00. Eat “la comida,” and we barely have time to brush our teeth and go to IES center for orientation that begins at 4:00 (yeah, no time for siesta) and lasts till 8:30 or later.

Last week, I went to a Moroccan wedding. My host brother was marrying a Saharan Amazigh woman, whose sister also got married that day. One of my friends from IES came with me.

The excursion to las Cataracas de Iguazú is one of those trips that everybody raves about, but you can never really understand why until you go for yourself. It definitely sounds like an exciting time when you hear about it–walking through a beautifully preserved national park of Argentina admiring one of the New Seven Wonders of the World–who wouldn’t be intrigued by that? But for me I didn’t think too much of it; I even debated if I should spend the time and money going so far for just a weekend.

Today as I was flipping through my planner in search of a password I’d jotted down a few months ago, I came across a reminder I’d written to myself to finish my study abroad application. It’s incredible to think that just six months ago, study abroad was just a fantasy.