One of the awesome things about going abroad with IES is the (approximately) two-week long trip that you take with your classmates. Its a great way to get to know your classmates as well as your host country, beyond the city you study in. For someone who is inexperienced in this type of travel (essentially, backpacking), a few tips for this trip can be really helpful:

This past weekend we took a trip to the Sahara Desert. It was one of the most surreal and breathtaking experiences ever. We were scheduled to ride camels into the sunset but Mama Africa decided to have a sand storm instead. Nonetheless, we resumed our trip the next morning to watch the sunrise.

Meet Malik everyone!

I brought three different rolls of film with me to South Africa to shoot during my travels around the country. I love using my mom’s old 35mm film camera that she bought when she was in college, because the picture quality is so much different than my digital camera. I love shooting a photograph with a solid idea of how the printed version of it is going to look in your mind, and then actually seeing how it truly turns out on paper after getting it developed.

One of the best things about studying abroad is that there seems to be no end to all the different kinds of things you can do. In a culture you’ve never experienced before, everything is new and exciting. Even a routine trip to the supermarket can turn into an adventure. This can make deciding what to do with your free time a difficult task. At first it may seem overwhelming, but here are a few tips to help you decide what to do with your free time while abroad:

No matter where you live during your time abroad, you’re going to have an incredible experience. However, where you decided to stay can intrinsically shape what kind of experience you have while abroad.

We spent our second day on San Cristóbal taking a field trip to three local spots along a road: El Junco Lake, La Galapaguera de Cerro Colorado, and Puerto Chino.

Our first stop was to El Junco Lake in the “highlands” 2,400 feet above sea level. (Compared to mainland Ecuador where highlands are 15,000 feet high and biodiversity means the most biodiverse spot on Earth, everything on the Galápagos sounds a bit underwhelming.) But my skepticism disappeared as soon as we got off the bus and saw this:

After a wonderful four weeks of learning Turkish, exploring the city, and establishing myself in Istanbul, I began the registration process at Bogazici University (pronounced Bo-ah-zi-chee — Turkish pronunciation is weird). Registering for classes in a university of 12,000 is different than registering for classes in a college of 2,000 students, I discovered. My registration process has been pretty ugly, so hopefully this will provide some insight for those of you arriving next semester!

One aspect of being in Berlin makes me feel like I haven’t left home: every encounter I’ve had with the locals I know (my hosts/the people who work at IES) and nearly every encounter with strangers has been positive. In Vermont I am used to smiling and waving at everyone because I know essentially everyone; cities have far more people and move much faster. Regardless, even amidst people rushing around absorbed in their days, I’ve noticed friendliness and kindness from passersby.

Okay, so going into my first week of classes at one of the leading musical theatre conservatories in London, the theatre capital of world, you could say I was a little nervous. “Intimidated” would be also be accurate. At times, even “scared out of my wits” wouldn’t be pushing it too far. But with each passing day, I’m more and more convinced that choosing to study abroad at Mountview was the best decision I’ve ever made for myself.