The GoGlobal Blog

Study Abroad Resources

Search

Category: Country
My first trips!

My first trips!

By |

Hello again,

It has now been a little over three weeks into my study abroad experience in Madrid, and everything is going great! I haven’t been keeping up with my blog because I have been busy with school and traveling, so I apologize that this is late!

About a week and a half ago I went on a day trip to Salamanca with SLU, and it was so much fun. Salamanca is a city in Spain that is filled with cobblestone roads and amazing architecture, making it a beautiful city. The trip was super fun, and it was amazing to learn all about the history. We had the opportunity to climb to the top of the University of Salamanca building, and look over the whole town. The view was so pretty, and totally worth the 3 euros it cost. My friends and I had no choice but to take a million pictures. I swear we were up there for like an hour. On the front of the building, there is a frog etched into it, and there’s a belief that if the students find the frog, then they will pass all of their classes. Our tour guide actually showed us the frog, and told us that we will pass all of our classes! So that was good to hear! When my friends and I came across the plaza mayor, we saw there was a spin class being held right in the middle of it! It was so fun to see, and they actually played Livin’ on a Prayer! They said to sing along, and we were probably the only ones. We looked very American and totally stood out, but it was totally worth it! We also saw a wedding being held, which was super beautiful. Like imagine getting married in Salamanca! They were taking pictures in front of an amazing building, and singing some spanish song and looked like they were having the time of their life! Overall, it was a pretty cool day trip!

Some of my classes are getting a little more difficult, so I’ve been checking out different coffee shops that are perfect for enjoying some coffee and to get some studying done. One coffee shop I found is called La bicicleta cafe, and I am totally obsessed with it! It is super cute on the inside, and has the best “cafe con leche”. One of the employees there speaks english, and these two girls were ordering their coffees and weren’t sure how to pronounce it, so the employee was telling them that “Spaniards are shameless”. My friend Alex and I overheard and he said again that it is good to be shameless and “not give a shit”. We were laughing, but honestly it is really good advice! His accent and the way he said it made it funnier than it was, but being shameless and just living life is a really good thing! The employees are super fun there, so I’ve already gone there a couple times to get some homework done! My classes are definitely easier than at Loyola, but there’s still work and studying to do. My host mom thinks since I’m not taking any nursing classes that I’m on a “four month vacation”. I thought that was really funny because even though I don’t have as much work to do and will be traveling around a lot, I definitely still need to focus on school! Considering that I am in fact “studying” abroad, and not just spending 4 months in Spain!

As you guys probably know, I was living alone with just my host mom, but I actually have a roommate now! Her name is Jasmine and she’s super nice and we get along great! I was excited to hear that I was getting a roommate because I live kinda far from my friends, so I thought it would be nice to have one in my house! We have already gone to starbucks together, and hopefully a trip or two. Who knows! That’s the beauty of studying abroad because you become friends with someone and then typically go on trips together! No one really cares! All people want is just someone to travel with and make memories with. One of my favorite things about studying abroad so far is that mostly everyone is so open to making friends and travel plans together!

Anyway, last weekend I went on my first trip to Mallorca! Mallorca is a beautiful island off of Spain, and the perfect location for a super fun and relaxing getaway! It was a short two days, but just the right amount of time because at the end of the trip I was totally exhausted. Alex and I woke up at 4am in order to make our flight, so we were tired from the start. There was also a totally embarrassing moment where I fell in the airport and a lot of people saw. It was really funny, and I just got right back up, but waking up at 4am will do that to ya! Alex and I thought about the employee at the cafe and laughed about how I should be shameless about it. I’m not even going to describe how I fell, but let’s just say it had to do with one of those moving walkway things! Anyway, after we arrived, we first walked around Palma de Mallorca, and enjoyed seeing the cute shops and street performers. Then, we made our way to the Cathedral de Santa Maria, which was probably the prettiest building I have ever seen! Eventually we made it to our airbnb, and enjoyed some snacks while sitting on the terrace that had a beautiful view of the ocean! The next day, we stayed at the beach for about 6 hours, and then made our way back to the airport. It was very short, but super nice to be able to just relax on the beach! We found some really cute cafes and had some really good food too! Definitely a good trip, which makes me super excited for all of my future travels!

Alright that’s it for now guys!

¡Hasta luego!

My Internship in Rome (Week 2)

My Internship in Rome (Week 2)

By |

This semester in Rome, I was fortunate enough to get hired as a marketing intern for a company called The Roman Guy. The Roman Guy specializes in various VIP tours of different tourist attractions all around Rome, as well as several local food tours in different areas. As an assignment for my class ROST 370, I am required to reflect on my experience of working as an intern for this company.

Specific Tasks

This week at the Roman Guy, I had almost the same tasks as last week. I found good reviews on trip advisor and posted them to our website, I continued to edit blog posts using the blog life cycle, brainstormed and researched ideas for my companies study abroad blog, posting on our company’s instagram, and I completed my Underground Colosseum essay for our website. Information from my marketing class that I took last semester has been helping me a lot so far with this internship, making certain marketing strategies a lot simpler for me to complete because my professor taught me this previous semester.

Learning Objectives

One of my learning objectives is to attract and communicate with travel bloggers in order to help market The Roman Guy tours and blogs. I have started to work towards achieving my learning objective because I have been interacting with some bloggers on instagram. I will find bloggers in the area and reach out to them, or bloggers that already know our company I will post their pictures and give them credit to our thousands of followers and they will do the same in return. Although this is just the start, by the end of my internship I hope that I could attract a wide variety of bloggers in order to help market The Roman Guy.

Challenges

Something that I have recently found very hard for me to do is to write for several hours without losing focus. I can easily lose focus if I am working on the same project for too long. My coworkers on the other hand can sit and write for the whole entire day without any breaks. Some efforts that I have been making to fix this is that I set a goal for how much I want to write and a certain amount of time, and when I achieve that goal I give myself a small break and go for a walk around the office. I also switch up my tasks frequently, so that I don’t get easily bored of doing the same thing.

What impresses me about my internship

Like I said last post, the main thing that still impresses me the most about my internship are my coworkers. It amazes me that in the marketing department, all of the girls will sit on their computer for several hours straight without any breaks and just write for that whole entire time. All of my coworkers experience in their field really impresses me and also how well everyone works together as a team in the small office to be successful.  

Expectations for the Future

In the future, I am going to continue working towards improving my writing because next week I have my study abroad blog due. On this blog, I am researching the best places to see amazing street art in Rome. After writing about six places, I have to go to each of the places and take/edit pictures of the art on my own. After I finish this project, my next project will be working on a different Rome Key Attraction post for the Roman Guy’s  website.

My Internship in Rome (Week 3)

My Internship in Rome (Week 3)

By |

This semester in Rome, I was fortunate enough to get hired as a marketing intern for a company called The Roman Guy. The Roman Guy specializes in various VIP tours of different tourist attractions all around Rome, as well as several local food tours in different areas. As an assignment for my class ROST 370, I am required to reflect on my experience of working as an intern for this company.

This week at The Roman Guy, I had several tasks that I needed to complete. Some of the tasks that I completed include finding TripAdvisor reviews and posting them to our website, editing three different blog posts using the blog lifecycle rules, posting two pictures on our instagram page (The Roman Foodie) and interacting with followers, and writing an article about the Colosseum Arena Floor for our website. Classroom knowledge has helped me significantly so far, because I have been using a lot of the skills that I previously had been taught in my marketing classes for my internship. As an intern, I was required to create several learning objectives that I want to achieve by the end of the semester. One of my learning objectives is to improve my writing skills for blog posts, various social media apps, and articles by following the blog life cycle at The Roman Guy. I have been working to achieve this learning objective a lot recently, because these past couple of weeks all of my tasks have had me very involved in writing which is ultimately helping me improve my writing skills. There is a lot more than what meets the eye about blogging, and now I am finally getting used to how the structure is for specific writings that I have to complete as well as strengthening my writing skills in general. Some problems that I have been having recently regarding my internship is transportation and being late because of class. There were two different times in the past two weeks where I didn’t get to work on time, because I had an onsite class and it went a lot longer than expected. Also transportation here isn’t that reliable. One day I had to wait three different times for the 990 bus because it was so packed and other times the regional train was delayed 10 minutes which caused me to be even more late. Im resolving this for the future by making sure that I leave extra early so that I can guarantee that I will be on time. Something that has been impressing me so far about my internship is the graphic design team. They work very long hours and the teamwork that they have with one another is outstanding. Everytime I go to our company’s website, there is always something new added and it looks fantastic! Some of my expectations for the following weeks include interacting and gaining more followers on the company’s instagram page, working on editing more blog lifecycle pages, writing more articles about different key attractions in Rome, and creating/researching my own blog post for my company’s page. So far I have been loving my internship and I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for me. Arrivederci!

My Internship in Rome (Week 4)

My Internship in Rome (Week 4)

By |

This semester in Rome, I was fortunate enough to get hired as a marketing intern for a company called The Roman Guy. The Roman Guy specializes in various VIP tours of different tourist attractions all around Rome, as well as several local food tours in different areas. As an assignment for my class ROST 370, I am required to reflect on my experience of working as an intern for this company.

This week at the Roman Guy, I have completed several tasks that were fairly similar to my tasks from last week. I found reviews online about our tours and posted them to the company’s website, I researched and wrote two articles on the Colosseum arena floor and the third tier, I edited and revised five different blog articles using the rules of the blog lifecycle, and I interacted and posted on our instagram page called The Roman Foodie. Previous classroom knowledge has been helping me a lot with my internship because my job is very writing intensive, so my english classes that I have recently completed have been very useful. One of my learning objectives that I have is to  improve my writing skills for blog posts, various social media apps, and articles by following the blog life cycle. I have been working to fully achieve this objective because the past weeks that I have been here I have been focusing on writing and following the blog life cycle. I see myself improving significantly, because the first couple of weeks I could only get a couple of posts done and now I can get a couple of them done in a day. Some challenges that I have been facing recently regarding my internship is balancing work and school with one another. It is midterm week, so I have been very busy with school and tests but on top of that I have to work as well. This week was hard because I stayed up pretty late after working in order to get school work done and it left me exhausted. For the future, I am going to try to get the majority of my school work and studying done on the weekends so that the school week isn’t as stressful. Something that has been impressing me a lot recently about my internship is how organized and professional the office is. All of the workers here are really good friends with one another, yet they still manage to get a lot of work done, be professional, and not let their friendships get in the way of their work. My expectations for the following weeks is that I am going to keep working on writing Rome’s key attraction pages. I am also expected to keep interacting and gain more followers on the Roman Foodie’s instagram. After fall break, I am going to be learning and taking over our The Roman Guys pinterest and posting on there. So far I love my internship and I cannot wait to see what the future holds. Arrivederci!
My adventure in China: Flying in Zhangjiajie

My adventure in China: Flying in Zhangjiajie

By |

 

 

I have to give thanks to my parents and my uncles for making me love nature and be an adventurer at heart. And I also have to give thanks to my friends Kate and Reed for organizing the trip to the best park I’ve visited in a long time.

The Monday of the Chinese national holiday, the Autumn Festival, we embarked on a twenty-four-hour train to the Hunan province, on the south of China. Fortunately,  we bought the train tickets with enough time to get beds during the ride and we were able to sleep for most of it until we arrived at Zhangjiajie, the city in Hunan where we stayed. Have already taken four overnight trains during our excursion along the Silk Road, we consider ourselves train experts. And we were very well prepared, with ramen, peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches and a lot of movies, among them Avatar, shot in the park we were going to visit.

After the train trip, we made it to the hostel craving to eat real food and take a shower. The hostel was we stayed was full of international students and close to a lot of local restaurants and bars. We dined like kings. Our friend Lenny, born and raised in the Hunan province, showed us the best traditional food of the area. That night, we also explored the city and bought traditional Chinese mooncakes.

The next day we visited Tianzi mountain, a popular attraction in the Wunlingyuan park. Without noticing and with a lot of strength, we climbed the mountain, our legs begging us to rest and the fog surrounding us. It took us around two hours, but getting to the top of the mountain was worth it. It felt like we were in a movie; the fog embracing us and not letting us see beyond our arms, but we loved the feeling of having made it and touching the highest rocks in the park. My friends almost cried with happiness while eating McDonald’s at the top of the mountain, but I was shocked seeing how far junk food has gotten, to the top of a mountain of one of the most beautiful parks in the world! We didn’t have the energy to walk down the mountain, so we got on a cable car and flew between the mountains, expecting to see the creatures from Avatar fly alongside us. Although I’m terrified of hights, I was able to survive the ride on the cable car. And it was so worth it.

Our hostel was in a city about an hour away from the park, so we took a bus back, where we all fell asleep. When we got back to the city of Zhangjiajie, where we were staying, we discovered a small restaurant next to our hostel and we ate there every single day, enjoying the best fried rice we’ve ever had.

The next day we walked in nature some more, but this time downhill. We took another cable car to the top of a different mountain and saw more fog, beautiful mountains and took a lot of pictures. We walked up a very high peak (I was very scared), we screamed to hear the echo rumble and did more exercise that we had done in weeks. And telling each other stories we hadn’t heard already we started walking downhill, this time our knees suffering. The way down was hard but rewarded by another delicious dinner and a night exploring the nightlife of the city.

Time flew by. And by the third day, I thought we had seen everything. We rode the fastest glass elevator in the world all the way to the top of yet another different mountain. It was a little disappointing because we couldn’t see much due to the amount of people in the elevator. But when we reached the top we had the best view of the whole three days and amazing noodles and roasted walnuts made by locals. We met another group of American students, one of us jumped in a lake after losing a bet, we saw rivers, and monkeys in their natural habitat, we had honey on a stick when we reached the valley of the mountain and we made memories that will be with us forever.

Another memory that is going to last us a lifetime is the one of the ride back to Beijing on a train that lasted almost thirty hours. We didn’t have beds this time, and I slept around two hours, with my head on a small table where three of my friends were also laying their heads. Being the way I am, I finished two books; and being the way we are, we watched three to four movies. And we ate more Nutella and peanut butter sandwiches. It was a very long ride. We spent the last four hours with people really close to us standing in the aisles. It was definitely an interesting experience. But it wasn’t horrible because we were a good group of people; we all got along very well and were organized well. I couldn’t have chosen a better group of people to travel with.

I know this wasn’t my last trip outside of Beijing, but it will certainly be one of the best. And the most beautiful.

My Internship in Rome (Week 5) – Midterm Post

My Internship in Rome (Week 5) – Midterm Post

By |

This semester in Rome, I was fortunate enough to get hired as a marketing intern for a company called The Roman Guy. The Roman Guy specializes in various VIP tours of different tourist attractions all around Rome, as well as several local food tours in different areas. As an assignment for my class ROST 370, I am required to reflect on my experience of working as an intern for this company.

When I first started this internship, to be honest I did not know what to expect. I’ll admit that I was really excited but also scared over the thought of having an internship in a foreign country. Upon visiting the office for the first time, I expected it to be a huge office with a lot of workers. This surprised me when I first arrived, because the office is pretty small with only about 30 employees. It also surprised me how young the majority of my coworkers are. When I had my first meeting with my bosses Lorna and Sian, they told me that for my internship I would be doing a lot of research on different tourist destinations in Rome and a lot of writing. My internship so far has been filling this expectation, because every week I am given an assignment to finish a blog post about a tourist attraction. For example, this week I had the assignment of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican. I spent one of my work days researching the history of the chapel, the artists who painted there, their artwork, and specific rules the chapel has upon visiting. After gathering all of this information, I then have to write a blog post about it and send it to my other boss Francesca when i’m finished for revision. She then looks it over and asks me to change anything if it needs it, and then she sends it over to the graphic design team who then publishes my post to the company’s website. I also expected this internship to be strengthening my marketing skills, and so far having this internship has been filling that expectation. Part of my job is to run the companies instagram, and this previous week I had to read different articles on how to appeal more to your audience and gain more followers. From this, I began to create more aesthetically pleasing posts which helped target a specific audience and ultimately helped us gain more followers. So far, the most interesting part of my internship is when I create different tourism attraction posts for our company’s website. It is interesting to me because I am improving my writing skills drastically and also it is interesting to keep learning new things about different attractions in Rome that I never knew before. It is also awesome to see my finished blog post on our company’s website because it makes me proud of my work. So far, one of the tasks that I have to do that I find the least interesting is editing blog posts using the blog life cycle. For each blog post, there is a checklist that our company has to follow to make sure that the blog has each aspect in order to make a strong post. This is my least favorite task because it usually takes a while to change a specific blog post because some are harder to edit than other ones. Also, it can be frustrating when you have done everything that you thought you could have to make a blog better but WordPress says that the post is not good and still needs more editing. So far, this academic internship has been improving my understanding of concepts that I learned from other marketing courses in college, but in a different way. In my internship, we use aspects like having a target audience and using general marketing tactics to make our company more well known. It is different in a sense because most of my marketing courses focused on marketing a huge corporation or a product, and this internship focuses on marketing our brand as well as a photo, event, or a blog post. Some personal learning goals that I have for this internship are to expand my marketing skills, strengthen my writing, and improve my creativity. So far, I have been achieving my goal of expanding my marketing skills and strengthening my writing, but at this point in my internship I am focusing on being more creative with our content and being more independent with my work. So far, that is my complete reflection about my internship and so far I am really enjoying it. I can’t wait to see what the future holds and how I will change as a person once this internship is completed.

Thanks for reading and ciao amici!

 
Beautiful Egypt

Beautiful Egypt

By |

This year for fall break (which was a glorious 10 days long) my father and I traveled to Egypt and Turkey. Why those countries, you ask? They’d been at the top of my bucket list for years. Before, my dad used to say that we couldn’t go, which was probably right with all the political happenings. But this year the trip was planned and booked by June.

My dad met me in the Cairo airport. I landed first and late, so it wasn’t very crowded. I wandered around baggage claim waiting for him, trying to find WiFi to let him know where I was. He got in two hours after me, and then we met our driver and transit guide (from EMO Tours) outside. This was our first major interaction with an Egyptian person, and he was nothing but kind.

The drive was about an hour, and we must’ve driven for about five minutes before we left the secure airport area. The “highway” was surprising clear, as I’d learn later, and we drove past signs for New Cairo, Maadi, and Giza. There were no lines on the road to separate lanes, and there were tons of billboards lit up with English and Arabic words. People were gathered on the side of the highway, waiting for a bus of sorts to come pick them up.

Our hotel was gated and the car was scanned before it was allowed to pass. Dad tipped our driver and guide in Egyptian lira. One of the most heartbreaking things about Egypt is that 1 USD equals 17 Egyptian lira/pounds. We ate at the hotel restaurant a few times, and our bill would say 98 pounds, which in reality is just under $6. And it was good food too, no detail missed.

The next morning we saw the pyramids for the first time from our hotel window. They were just as grand and I had to pinch myself to make sure that I was actually there. When dad and I went downstairs to meet our guide for the day, a woman holding a sign with EMO Tours on it met us. Her name was Ola and she wore a long black skirt that swished around her ankles, a warm-looking green long sleeve, and a black hijab. Over the day, we would learn much about and from her, and she would come to feel much like family.

Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Hassan, the first mosque we visited.
A busy street in downtown Cairo.
The building on the right is what the majority of buildings in Cairo look like. Some are even empty, and you can tell which ones those are because they don’t have windows yet.

Over the first day we visited mosques, the Step Pyramid in Sakkara, the three major pyramids, the Sphinx, a major historic street, and so many other gorgeous sites. At every site, we went through a metal detector. There were usually multiple armed guards, and tons of salesmen trying to sell cheap little Pyramids, scarves, and other souvenirs from China. And of course, a good number of tourists and Egyptian people alike.

The Great Pyramid of Giza was one of my favorite sites. First of all, it’s one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and probably the only one I’ll get to visit in my lifetime. Second, the view from up there was amazing, and it was my first time seeing the sandy and dark brown city from above. The air was warm and dry, and the sun was baking. Third, I got to stand on the Pyramid! (We didn’t go in because we’d heard that there wasn’t much to see and that it was just cramped.) The blocks that made up the Pyramid itself were huge, and the ones we walked on were worn from shoes. It towered over us, and put history in perspective. Ola was very kind and let us explore on our own a little bit because she knew my dad and I both loved photography. She waited patiently for us and gave us tips on how to avoid getting scammed out of our money, one of which was don’t take a picture of a camel because the rider will charge you money for it! Another bit of advice was avoid the people in bathrooms trying to turn the faucet on for you or give you paper towels because they will ask you for money too.

The view while standing on the side of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
The Great Pyramid of Giza with the Pyramid of Khafre in the foreground.

We ate lunch at a local shop, where Ola ordered us food that she thought we should try at my dad’s request. It was amazing. My dad asked Ola tons of questions, some on the etiquette of men and women in Egyptian society. Ola told us that if I hadn’t been with them, another woman, people would have frowned upon Ola because she was with an unfamiliar man (my dad) who wasn’t her husband. When we first met her, she shook our hands, which she later explained wasn’t normal because she wasn’t supposed to touch a man. She greeted/said goodbye to me by “kissing” both cheeks, which I came to expect while in Egypt and Turkey. We stopped at a papyrus shop on the way back to our hotel where we learned how papyrus paper is made, and purchased a small bit to take home.

The next morning, we left for the airport at 3:30am. We were flying to Luxor, Egypt, which is about 400 miles south of Cairo. Our second tour guide, Shimaa, met us at Luxor Airport. Our driver for that day had a car with a bright, lime green interior. It constantly baffles me that although the average income in Egypt is $300, the majority own cars.

Luxor was much quieter than Cairo, with far fewer cars, and much warmer. We drove alongside the river, past a herd of sheep, tied up horses and donkeys, and gatherings of kids on the tall bank above the water. Trees sprouted at the edge of the water and on the higher banks. Both in Cairo and Luxor people still use horses/donkeys to pull carts of produce. It’s definitely a unique cross of developed and undeveloped.

The herd of sheep we passed while on our way to the Temple of Hatshepsut.

Our first stop in Luxor was the Temple of Hatshepsut. It’s carved directly out of the side of the mountain, with three layered terraces each with an impressive set of columns. It has a “modern” feel, that was not repeated in that time. Shimaa, our tour guide, told us the story of why the temple was built so large, which was because Hatshepsut was unhappy each time the designer added another layer. On its walls it featured beautifully painted walls that were mostly faded, but some held their color.

The great Temple of Hatshepsut.

Next up was Karnak Temple, a huge temple that’s still largely intact. It had absolutely gorgeous columns carved with Egyptian symbols. Then we ate lunch at one of the open restaurants, which was rice and stew. We also met a family of six that was originally from America, but were living in Saudi Arabia. After lunch we went to our last place of the day: Luxor Temple. It is a good sized temple with huge statues of Egyptian kings and pharos, such as King Ramses II and King Tut. It has giant columns like other temples, and at sunset the light shining through them was beautiful. That night we returned to Cairo.

Karnak Temple.
The Temple of Luxor at sunset.
A typical fruit market in Luxor, Egypt.

On our third day in Egypt, Ola was our guide again. She took us to the Egyptian Museum, which we breezed through. We saw hundreds of artifacts from King Tut’s tomb, which must’ve taken up half a floor of the museum. We spent only an hour there, when we could’ve spent five. Next we visited a series of religious buildings, which included a Catholic Church, two mosques, and an old synagogue. The last hour of the time we had with Ola she took us on a cruise on the Nile River. We got on a huge sailboat and ate koshari, which is a traditional Egyptian dish made up of rice, lentils, pasta noodles, and topped with tomato sauce. It was delicious! Dad asked Ola if we could make it at home, and she laughed and said no because it would take a long time because there were so many parts. When it came time to say goodbye to Ola, we tipped her 50 Egyptian pounds (about $3) and €20, which for her would go a long way. We wanted to help her out, even though we knew that it wouldn’t go very far for long.

View of Cairo from the Mosque of Muhammad Ali.
The Nile River at sundown.
The Mosque of Amr.

We spent a lot of time in traffic on the last day, but the first two days were fairly easy. Friday and Saturday are holy days, so nobody works. Sunday is a work day, which caused every single car it seemed to be on the road. Cairo, and Egypt in general, is a country that never sleeps. We were out at 12am and a decent number of people would still be out. A interesting part of Egyptian culture is that they eat breakfast around 10am, lunch around 4pm, and then dinner around 10pm and sometimes even later. Traditionally, only men are “allowed” out at late hours. Families hope for boys to be born because they have much more freedom than women do. Egypt is a country tied to their traditions, although some are trying to change the norms. The difference between Ola (living in Cairo) and Shimaa (living in Luxor) was vast. Shimaa said that she believed that believing in her religion was enough; that she didn’t need to pray the allotted five times a day because Allah already knows that she believes in him. Ola, on the other hand, prays as much as she can. She finds comfort in it, and at one of the mosques we visited, my dad and I explored while she went to prayer. Ola also told us that she doesn’t listen to music because it’s forbidden, while Shimaa talked openly about what music she liked.

Walking around Cairo people stared at us. My dad asked Ola if she noticed it once, and she said yes. She said it was because he was there, and that I had my head uncovered and was wearing a short sleeve t-shirt. Ola said that they appreciated us being there because we were tourists. After the revolution in 2011, the tourism at some monuments dropped 95%. Its made a slow recovery, but nothing like it used to be pre-revolution. That is evident in the “average” life of Egyptians, where they work hard if they have a job and work hard if they don’t. This was the closest to poverty that I have ever come. Ola worked incredibly hard and suffers from neck and back pain. She doesn’t complain because she has to work to help support her family (husband + two kids). I hope someday that I can return to Egypt and see her. I’ve never had a friend in a country like Egypt, and it tugs at my heart when I think of her.

Me and our wonderful, amazing tour guide Ola. I hope to see her again one day!

P.S. Turkey is blogged about in a different post. Happy Halloween!
Living like a local?

Living like a local?

By |

The leaves have started changing color here and you can find me drinking, no not tea, but instant coffee. Yes, the locals might be ashamed of me that I don’t drink tea but I don’t think anyone has caught on to me yet. Fun fact, the public transportation system is entirely different from the crazy L train in Chicago. The Tube is quiet, yes, I really mean quiet and if someone is having a conversation they’re talking in hushed tone. So, if you’re on the Tube and you’re talking extremely loudly expect to get some dirty looks thrown at you or at least a sideways glance. On the plus side, I’d like to think I’m blending in because I get asked for directions. I’ve also probably directed people the total opposite way, but hey that’s okay. Also, don’t forget to tap your oyster when leaving the Tube because that will get you some dirty looks for holding up the exit and a very embarrassing experience.

If you decide to take a walk through the beautiful Kensington Gardens, watch out for the birds. The swans and geese swimming in the pond are stunning, until they decide to attack. A flock of pigeons almost took me down after my run and I seemed to be the only person fazed. Kensington Gardens is beautiful in the fall with all the leaves changing color so it is definitely a must see, especially with Kensington Palace attached to it where William and Kate live (no sightings of them yet unfortunately). If you’re told to “queue up” they’re not talking about your Netflix queue they’re asking you to line up. As much as I’ve tried to blend in they definitely know the Americans from the locals and there is nothing wrong with that! Just remember to stay in hushed tones on the Tube and watch out for the birds and you’ll be okay.

 

 

 
Segovia, Madrid, and Cordoba!

Segovia, Madrid, and Cordoba!

By |

Helloooo! 

So, it’s been awhile. I haven’t had the opportunity to make a blog post recently because my computer broke and I wasn’t able to use it for awhile. So, I’m gonna try to catch you guys up on what I have been up to. Because I haven’t posted in awhile, this post won’t have any pictures, but you can see them all on my facebook!

A little over a month ago, I went on a day trip to Segovia with my friends Julia and Rachel. After arriving at the train station, we took a cab to the Roman Aqueduct. It’s original purpose was to bring in water to the city. Now, it’s just kinda there and something that looks really cool. Actually, it is one of the best preserved elevated aqueducts! We then walked to the cathedral and then did a little tour. With it’s beautiful gothic architecture, it was amazing inside and out. After the cathedral, we went to the Alcazar, which means its a Spanish palace of moorish origin. There are many Alcazars around Spain because it is where the royal family would stay when visiting different cities. We decided that paying the extra 2 euros would be worth the view at the top of the castle, and we were right! We had a view of most of the town and could even see the cathedral. The 152 steps were kinda rough, but the view was totally worth it! Overall, the day trip to Segovia was super fun and very interesting!

The next weekend I actually stayed in Madrid and had a very relaxing weekend. It was nice to relax, and catch up with family and friends from home. I think I facetimed different people almost all day long. I realized I couldn’t stay in my room the whole weekend though, so I decided to explore Madrid a little bit more. I ended up going the Prado with some friends, which is an art museum in Madrid. The artwork was super interesting, and it was a pretty good day learning more about the history of Spain. During the week in my flamenco class, we had a super fun day of trying on different flamenco outfits. We had a little photoshoot, and it was so fun! After that, my friend Julia and I went to a cute coffee shop called Monkee Koffee and hung out there for a little bit and did some studying! As a snack, I bought a “bowl of fruit” and it was honestly so good. They mixed the fruit with honey and some other stuff that makes it a pretty popular snack that students get while studying here.

The weekend after that I went to Córdoba with Jackie! It was the weekend of our fall break, so we decided a short two day trip would be perfect. Afterall, we still had midterms that we needed to study for. Córdoba is a super cute town about a 4 hour bus ride away from Madrid! It is full of flowers and narrow cobblestone streets, and I loved it. The only problem about this trip was that Jackie literally almost missed the bus. I was standing in between the door, so the driver wouldn’t leave without her. I thought I was going to have to go by myself, but thankfully she made it! When we arrived, we walked around the town a little bit. It’s a pretty small town, and the main things to see is the cathedral and the alcazar. We did those the second day we were there, so the first day we had a pretty chill day of getting to know Córdoba. Of course, Jackie wanted to go to cien montaditos. I don’t know if I talked about it yet, but it is literally the best place ever. They have the best tinto de verano and it is only 1.5 euros. So, we went to cien and had some tinto and then we ate at The Good Burger. (I know, we are in Spain, and we are eating at an American restaurant? I guess we just miss America lol). We ended up eating there because it was kinda difficult to find gluten free places in Córdoba. We were only there for two days though, so it wasn’t too bad.

So, our second day in Córdoba we did all the touristy stuff. First, we went to the Alcazar. The best thing about it was probably the garden. It was so pretty! Jackie and I enjoyed looking at all the flowers and taking a million pictures. The next thing we did was go to the Mosque that was turned into a Cathedral. It had a mix of Christian and Islamic characteristics that made it super interesting to see. After that, we were starving so we found a place to get lunch. It took so long, and the service was super bad. We ended up getting our food over an hour after we ordered. We did know we were in Spain though, so it was kinda expected. For those who don’t know, bad service is typical in Spain. Don’t expect to have a quick lunch anywhere in Spain. We’ve definitely gotten used to it. Overall, I loved how cute of a town Córdoba was and it was a perfect trip for two days.

My next blog post will be about my weekends in San Sebastian and Rome! You’ll hopefully be hearing from me soon! Hasta luego!

My Internship in Rome (Week 6)

My Internship in Rome (Week 6)

By |

This semester in Rome, I was fortunate enough to get hired as a marketing intern for a company called The Roman Guy. The Roman Guy specializes in various VIP tours of different tourist attractions all around Rome, as well as several local food tours in different areas. As an assignment for my class ROST 370, I am required to reflect on my experience of working as an intern for this company.

This week at The Roman Guy, I finished writing and researching a post about Michelangelo’s the Pietà for our Vatican Tours. After my work is read and reviewed by my boss, it is later posted to our website in order to inform customers who are interested in taking a tour of the Vatican. I also found Tripadvisor reviews about our tours online and posted them to our website, so that customers are able to see other positive reviews about our service. Lastly, I interacted with followers and posted on my company’s instagram, The Roman Foodie, in order to increase followers and market the company. Previous classroom knowledge has been helping me because since the majority of my internship involves writing, some English courses that I took last semester are really coming in handy. Also specifics that I learned in my previous marketing classes has been helping me too, because a lot of the things that I do at my internship relate to what I learned about marketing in school. Before starting my internship, I created a learning objective that I wanted to achieve by the end of my internship. One of my learning objectives that I have been working towards completing is improving my writing skills regarding blog posts, various social media apps, and articles as well as having my boss critique my work when I am finished. I am reaching this objective because every week I am in charge of researching and writing an article on a famous tourist site in Rome, and afterwards my boss reviews and critiques my work in order to help me improve. Regarding challenges, I had something terrible happen to me that will affect my internship. In class, my iPhone was sitting on the edge of the table and when my professor walked past and bumped the table, my iPhone fell on the ground. At first it appeared fine because it did not have any cracks, but then I realized that the whole touch screen was broke and the screen wouldn’t stop flashing. This is crucial because I am in charge of running my company’s instagram, which I use my iPhone to do. Luckily my friends are amazing, as they are letting me use their phone to post for the company whenever I need to and continue to interact with followers in the mean time, so hopefully this accident won’t be too much of an inconvenience. So far, one of the most impressive things about my internship to date is my coworkers. They are really supportive of me being a leader and the decisions that I make, and whenever there is a problem they always completely understand and help me with whatever I need. They are the best and I always look forward to working with them. My expectations for the following weeks is that I am going to be researching and writing more about Rome key attractions, running The Roman Foodie instagram account, and I will also be taking over my companies Pinterest page and learning how to monitor our followers. So far I have been loving my internship and I cannot wait to see what the future has in store for me. Ciao for now and thanks for reading!