Rome was a wonderful place to study abroad this past semester, and there are many things I’ve learned along the way that I would recommend to other students who are about to travel abroad. 

1. Get a local SIM card in your country. 

Back in March, we had a fairly long break for Easter weekend, so my friend and I decided to travel to Berlin and go sightseeing for three days! In this post, I’m going to share general tips for overnight traveling as well as some specific details of how we planned our trip to Berlin.

One of England’s greatest rivalries is the one between Cambridge and Oxford. Which is the better choice for those lucky enough to consider either? I have no idea. This blog is not a comparison between these schools, which are likely both fantastic. It is a look into my experiences visiting the two cities. These universities are major institutions that lie at the centre of two beautiful cities in England with the same names. I had the chance to take a day trip to Cambridge where I toured Trinity College, St.

Can you really say you were in the U.K. if you did not tour a castle…or four? If you want to explore the United Kingdom and learn about it, one of the easier ways to do that is touring a few of its castles. They are a huge part of the country’s tourism, and rightly so because they are beautiful. The grandeur of the rooms and the gardens is difficult to swallow. Especially when you consider that for some people in the country, those castles were home. Those people were surrounded by that level of grandeur and beauty everyday.

One of the best decisions I made for studying abroad as a Theatre major was joining IES Abroad London’s Theatre Studies program. Experiencing theatre in London was one of the best parts of studying abroad there. I loved every moment of learning about theatre in classes and discussing it with my peers in the program. I reveled in every moment of exploration and discovery as I watched show after show on the West End and off. The best show I watched in London was not on West End, it was Leaves of Glass at the Park Theatre.

It’s hard to believe I have already been home for a full week, and yet it feels like I didn’t even leave! My flight home was great, direct from Rome to Boston with Ella in the seat next to me, then took the bus home to Portland. Besides my suitcase handle breaking once we landed and having to stack our suitcases together to wheel through passport control, everything went perfectly and I got to reunite with my whole family and puppy that afternoon. 

As someone who runs on the indecisive side, choosing a study abroad location was a bit difficult. There are so many wonderful places to go and so many different ways I could picture the semester going. I was pretty confident that I wanted to go to Italy, but even within Italy there are so many places to choose from. Syracuse University in Florence filled up almost immediately, so that was a decision I didn’t have to make. Between Rome, Milan, and Siena, I ruled out Milan because I wanted to be a little more southern. 

After studying abroad for any amount of time, I think every student will say that they feel like they’ve come back somewhat different. And with personal change comes changes to the relationships in your life, which can be scary knowing that you’ll have to jump right back in.