Finally made it to Siena, Italy after two days of adventures and mishaps. After a successful, albeit emotionally exhausting departure from Grand Rapids, the other Hope College student who is studying in Siena and I had a smooth flight to Chicago and a subsequently smooth flight to Frankfurt. After a 5:30 a.m. arrival in Frankfurt, we hung out in the near-empty airport for our 8:55 flight to Florence.
It’s crazy the way travel can be so impactful on the mind and the body. For the last week or so, I have been beyond pumped for my trip to New Zealand.
For my first three weeks here, I am enrolled in one course: tropical ecology. Class takes place in a purple, stucco building on the university campus for three hours a day, four days a week. To the delight of a classroom full of amateur field biologists, though, most of our class days are spent outside. We take trips to many different ecosystems within this incredibly biodiverse country and learn more than we ever could inside walls, no matter how vibrant their color might be.
Check out the video above for highlights from our study journey to Tarragona, a coastal region in Cataluña south of Barcelona — for a comprehensive write-up of our experiences, check out Marisa’s post:
http://blogs.iesabroad.org/mross92ufl-edu/tarragona-a-town-of-traditions/
A view of the Rathaus in Vienna
After several plane rides and many listless hours in the airport, I finally came through the gates at Charles De Gaulle. At first I stayed with my oldest sister, Isabella, who works as a teaching assistant in Paris and lives in a studio near the center of the city, but then before my program began I moved into my homestay. I’m living with a woman named Alix in the 15th arrondissement in an apartment that, I soon discovered, is less than a ten minutes’ walk from the Eiffel Tower.
Nabianr, 那边儿, or ‘over there’ in Chinese was a phrase that I did not know before today, but will never forget.
