I sat backwards on the lower level of the red double-decker. The guy across from me had his eyes closed. The woman next to me checked her emails on her phone.

“Bloomsbury Way. Alight here for Holborn Underground Station.”

I whipped my head around to see announcement run across the screen in the front of the bus. Yep, Bloomsbury Way.

This weekend we visited Tilonia village in the deserts of Rajasthan, the last of a series of excursions undertaken by our socioeconomics class this semester. Here we were lucky enough to take residence at Barefoot College, an internationally renowned NGO founded by the Indian social activist Bunker Roy.

Care tutte,

Louisa, Hannah and me in front of the Siena Duomo

About a month ago I went to a partido de fútbol of Ecuador-Bolivia which was my first football game in Ecuador!

As we trundled north along the highway toward Bilbao, a jumble of words caught my eye from a sign. My head whipped around as I did a double take to peer through the tinted window. I had no idea what the word meant, but I knew that the arrangement of letters was nothing remotely close to Spanish. Before I even had time to untwist my neck, another sign sped by, announcing “Ongi etorri Euskadi – Bienvenidos al País Vasco.” Welcome to Basque Country.

So I went to a real discussion session at a real French university yesterday. I take most of my classes at the IES center, but Northwestern requires you to take one outside. I wanted to take a Literature class at the Sorbonne, and the only one that worked out with my schedule was this random class on Greek mythology. I thought, yeah no problem. Easy stuff. This is what French students do.

There comes a point in every study abroad student’s life where they come to the sudden, unfortunate realization that they aren’t paying a semester’s tuition to gallivant around their host country for a few months, but rather to take a full, legitimate course load (while gallivanting around their host country).  I just recently came to this realization—a little late, I’ll admit, given that I’ve just completed my second week of classes.  It took me so long, I think, not (totally) because I’m in denial, but because they are more like an extension of the cultural immersion I’ve alrea