I arrived at the John Felice Rome Center a little less than a week ago and it has been a whirlwind of a journey to say the least. After traveling for almost 20 hours, I was thrown into more orientation activities than I could count. I was extremely overwhelmed by all of the information and …
It all hit me when I saw a palm tree rocking back and forth in the wind on the other side of a window at Fiumicino Airport. I thought of previous family vacations and tried to understand where I was, “Am I in Florida?” But I quickly nixed that thought as I worked through it …
When I left Chicago a lot was going through my mind. I was going to a country that I had never been to before, and one that not very many American students wanted to study abroad in, at least compared to places in Western Europe. After the fourteen hour long flight was finally over the …
After a long, and ongoing, battle with jet lag, my third day in Edinburgh began with a quick change and a brisk walk to Arthur’s Seat. It caught my attention the minute we saw it’s green and brown-capped peaks towering over the city as we drove in. I love hiking at home, and often feel …
I never knew much about Amsterdam, but it had always been on my bucket list. I don’t know why I always had this gut feeling to go, but I did, and without doing any research on the city my friends and I booked a flight there for a weekend. If only I had known that …
Life as of recently has been stressful to say the least. It’s the end of the semester, which means that it’s time to turn in assignments and study for tests with deadlines that seemed like they were years away. Every time I check the calendar I am shocked to see that it’s yet another day …
There is one week left of my study abroad adventure in Beijing, and I am feeling a brew of emotions. The first, excitement. For the past two weeks, I’ve felt really homesick, more homesick than I have ever felt before during this semester. It’s probably because the power of the holidays is on full blast …
As a last huzzah before Finals Week, last weekend my friends and I hopped onto a 3 hour plane to Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan Province of China and also known as the Home of the Giant Panda. We ended up staying there for two days and three nights, and by the end of …
My final trip of my semester abroad (or shall I call it, my 3 1/2 month long dream) was to Athens! My expectations of the city were very minimal– I had absolutely no idea what Athens had in store for me. But boy, was it amazing. My plane landed in Athens late on Thursday night, …
So this past Thursday was actual Thanksgiving Day, and to be honest with you all, it didn’t really feel like Thanksgiving. In the days leading up to Turkey Day, I was feeling less homesick than I thought, most likely because I wasn’t being bombarded with the fact that Thanksgiving was quickly coming up (I made …