I am writing this on a rainy Sunday evening, after working tirelessly for the last week on my exams for the University of Amsterdam and thought I should reflect on my school experience thus far. My ten-or-so days of hard studying were draining and stressful, as they usually are, yet quite different, especially for myself as a history major.

Studying abroad and traveling can come with some unexpected challenges. I have learned so much so far during my time abroad and have had several experiences with unforeseen challenges. These challenges are probably not something you picture before you start your abroad experience. Instead, you imagine the aesthetic Instagramable version of an abroad experience when in reality pretty much everyone I know has had some crazy story where they were put in an unexpected challenging situation.

There is so much to do when traveling abroad. So much that it’s impossible to do it all. You’ll try. And you will be able to do so many amazing things. But you may forget to just be. It can sound a little silly. But you are in a new city for a semester trying to immerse yourself like a local and one of the best ways I’ve found to do this is by just walking around. You can discover so much from a leisurely stroll, but many students (and just other travelers/ tourists in general) go for the big things in the area. But you are there for a whole semester.

I did not do much research before going on the IES Abroad field trip to Shirakawa-Go and Takayama. I usually like to leave things as a surprise on IES Abroad field trips and only read the itinerary to get a sense of what I'm doing, and I leave the rest up to our helpful program director. I sure am glad I did that on this field trip because everything I saw was an absolute shock.