One-hundred days. I have kept a journal during my time in Rome and Wednesday, May 11th marks the 100th day that I have spent abroad. In a way it feels like the trips I took recently happened further back than my arrival. I got to Rome only yesterday, but Dublin was so long ago. Time has a strange way of working like that. In a city that has existed for thousands of years in some form, the effects of time are all around you.
Howth stands as one of my all-time favorite places to visit in Ireland. It is the perfect day trip as it offers outdoor markets, cliffside hikes, and lighthouse views. It is only about a forty minute DART ride from Dublin city center to reach the beautiful, quaint seaside village of Howth. I came here on three separate weekends to hike along the cliffside and take a refreshing break from the busy city of Dublin.
Here is a simple, must-do itinerary for your day in Howth. It is the perfect day spent sharing in community with the locals and experiencing the beauty of rural Ireland.
With my final days in Berlin quickly approaching, I am forced to come to terms with two unfortunate facts: I am leaving soon, and I won’t be able to see every single thing the city has to offer. When I came to Berlin, I had a massive list of places I wanted to see, shops I wanted to browse, museums I wanted to go to, restaurants and cafés I wanted to try, and more. Simply put, I wanted to do it all. In a city with over 150 museums alone, this desire was incredibly ambitious, especially considering I would be in the city for less than four months. But how often do I get to Europe?
It’s the last weekend of my program, and as I take the train from Rabat to Marrakech, I feel heavy with memories of my time in such a magnificent country. The landscape around me turns slowly from the lush greens of Casablanca to the cool beiges of the desert caused by the rain shadow of the Atlas Mountains. It’s hard to believe how nonchalant taking a cross-country Moroccan train feels now, compared to the fresh-faced me that appeared in the Rabat airport just four months ago.
I leave for home tomorrow. I knew this day was coming but didn’t expect it to come up quite so quickly.
Over the last few days, I’ve been in an efficient mindset, getting in last minute tours and sight seeing, buying a few gifts here and there for people, and trying to pack my life from the last four months into two suitcases. But now in the small moments of quiet as my suitcases sit zipped and ready to go next to me, I find myself overcome with sadness for my departure, but so grateful for the opportunity to miss something so dearly.
Living in a country whose language I’m not yet fluent in has made me more willing to push my comfort zone in all aspects of life. I view risks differently; I interact with people in ways I never did before. I talk to strangers, listen more actively, and most importantly, I seek interactions everywhere I go. And so much wholesomeness has come out of this. I want to share some of these interactions and maybe give you a little hope for your study abroad experience.
And study abroad is finally over. After about a week and a half of traveling after the end of my program (which was a whole other adventure in itself), I am finally back home. Luckily, all of my travel back home went smoothly, and I was greeted by my family, my friends, and, of course, my dog. After some much-needed time to recover from the long flight and the jet lag, I have been able to reflect upon my experience in Nantes.
Martín Habiague is a social entrepreneur. In 2005, he founded the Fundació Ciutadania Multicultural and launched Mescladís, a non-profit and self-sustaining social business. Mescladís was designed with the aim of contributing to the accommodation of the migrant population and native citizens through educational activities that promote social cohesion and solidarity economy initiatives that facilitate social and labor inclusion. He studied sociology at the University of Buenos Aires and worked in consulting in Buenos Aires, London and Brussels.