It is no secret that the Chinese people have a long tradition of tea drinking. Nowhere is this fact more evident than Beijing’s famous 马连道 (Mǎliándào) Tea Street. Last Sunday, we took the public bus from BěiWài to a four-story concrete tower packed full of authentic Chinese tea shops. The shops boasted every kind of tea imaginable, with each variety categorized under one of six main types of Chinese tea: White (白茶), Green (绿茶), Black (红茶), Oolong (青茶), Pu’Er (普洱茶), and Yellow (黃茶).

I won’t say that I’ve always known that I was lucky to grow up as an English speaker, but I will say that I have been aware for a long time that being a native English speakers is an incredible boon in the international community of modern times.

said the waiter at the first restaurant I ate at in Dublin. Or, that’s what he would have said if I was the hugging type and didn’t have very good impulse control.

You’re confused. Let me explain.

It is time for an adventure abroad… a long, four-month adventure to the country of Morocco! What am I feeling? Mostly two things: Excited, of course. This is going to be an amazing semester; I know it. The second feeling is being unprepared. This is for a few reasons. First, I don’t know any Arabic yet, and with Arabic being one of the country’s official and most spoken languages, communication might be difficult. However, I am looking forward to using my French to help me.

It seems fitting that I write my first post about South Africa on Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, a day that celebrates a man,  like Nelson Mandela, who believed that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Officially there are t-minus five days until I drive to JFK in NYC and board my 18 hour flight to beautiful South Africa. I still can’t believe that I will get to live in the Mother City for five months, with my best friend living just down the road. However, these next five days are going to be tough.

It has been over a month since I left Paris. Little things remind me of Paris all the time: rows of baguettes in the grocery store, French words on a billboard, the black and white photos covering my walls. Transitioning back to life in the US had been strange. The first day I got back, I was walking down the street and all around me I could hear people speaking in English. I was so overwhelmed because hearing English just didn’t feel right. I felt so uneasy and out of place, all I wanted was for someone to speak French.

I anxiously read today’s date on my phone’s calendar, it’s only 1/20/2014. I still have four more weeks until I begin my semester at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (上海财经大学). What am I going to do for the next month while everyone else back at my home university is already back in school?

Usually the phrase “going in circles” has a negative implication, but here it’s a fact of life. The shape of Milan is a series of circles nestled inside one another, demonstrating the growth pattern of the city from its medieval roots to the outlying suburbs. No matter how lost you get, eventually you will end up somewhere familiar. The first few days definitely had a “survival” feel to them: using public transportation, purchasing an Italian cell phone, how to order a cappuccino…the important things.

The two adjectives I hear (and use) most frequently since arriving in Nantes a week and a half ago are “fatigué” (tired) and “enthousiaste” (excited). Everyone is constantly tired due to our full schedule of orientation activities and the difficulty of listening to and speaking French all the time. But at the same time, we’re all so happy about everything we’ve been doing that the exhaustion is put aside in favor of excitement.