For our Semana Santa week-long break, which is the week leading up to Easter in Spain, we are going on a mega tour of Central Europe. We’re starting with Budapest, then taking a train north to Vienna, then Prague, and finally Berlin. Because I wanted to get back to Spain to witness the Semana Santa processions and over-the-top celebration, I… Read more →
I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing about The Fault in Our Stars after last summer’s obsession with it, so here let me talk about it some more. If you know anything about The Fault in Our Stars you know that part of the movie, arguably the best part, takes place in Amsterdam. Whenever I told people that I was… Read more →
Even though I consider myself a “foodie,” I’ve never been someone who takes pictures of my food and probably never will be. I don’t know if that’s because I don’t take many pictures in general or because I just don’t understand what I’ll do with a picture of French toast a month down the road. I don’t have Instagram, so… Read more →
1. Handwashing People don’t always wash their hands here after leaving the bathroom, but I don’t think this is necessarily a choice. Of all the dozens I’ve been to, only a few have had hand soap and of those only a couple have had both hand soap and a way to dry your hands. I asked my host mom about… Read more →
I’ve always considered myself an outgoing introvert. I love talking to people, but I often find myself needing to recharge after time spent in a group. But last weekend, I was overcharged. I’d spent so much time alone back in America, that what I really wanted was to be with people, to think about someone else’s life for a while.… Read more →
There’s something I like to call small scale traveling versus large scale traveling. You could consider this the difference between spending a week in New York City seeing all the attractions and spending a week in Greenwich Village. I love both of these modes of travel. You kind of have to do the first type of touristy traveling to… Read more →
This post is probably going to be an amalgam of a few thoughts I’ve had in the past few days, but I guess that’s a good representation of this experience of studying abroad. So many things happen each day that it’s really hard to put it into words, but I’m going to try. On Tuesday, our group went to El… Read more →
Remember last time when I said that there will be bad days, well I didn’t exactly have a bad day, but I did feel my first wave of homesickness and feeling down about myself and my progress. And it’s all because of a sandwich…let me explain. Our group is spending a week in Granada, which is in the southern tip… Read more →
If there is one thing I learned from traveling Europe with my mom, it’s that travel is not easy. Sure, it’s fun and rewarding, but definitely not easy. Something that my mom said to me before I came to Madrid, and I think it’s pretty brilliant, is that not every day in Madrid is going to be good. Just because… Read more →
I’m still here. By here I mean Chicago. I was supposed to be board a 5pm flight yesterday to Madrid, but when the crew discovered a broken part that needed to be shipped from elsewhere, we were told to go home because we wouldn’t be going anywhere that night. So after a very emotional farewell right in line for security,… Read more →