Aqueducts, Grottos, and Cliff Diving Today was unreal. The morning went by pretty quickly: I ventured out on my own for the first time to the bar around the corner from my apartment for a cappuccino and a pasticciotto (a small pastry). I then walked to the panetteria (bread shop) to buy my daily roll of bread, and came back to the apartment before anyone else had awoken. At 3:00 p.m., I and the rest of the students in my study-abroad…
Culture Shock On Top of Culture Shock I have been in London for a little over seventy-two hours, and have spent even less time at Goldsmiths College. My first few hours in the city were certainly not the best; grumpy, hungry and exhausted, I was more than prepared to go to sleep, but the intrepid and energetic Lisa Brawley marched us off to explore the shores of the Thames, complete with a stop at Borough Market for lunch and then at a…
Before I left for London, I spent a few days travelling around the United States visiting various friends. I saw Philadelphia, Poughkeepsie, and New York City, saying goodbye to people I care about pre-departure. I started to notice that my friends all said similar things to me as I left: “I’ll miss you!” “This is a really great opportunity for you!” “I’m so jealous! You’ll have so much fun!” After all these encouraging words, my friends inevitably met me with a look of…
IHP, or International Honors Program, offers study abroad programs unique in the sense that their programs all begin in the United States for approximately two weeks. My program—which focuses on the impacts of climate change and policies on food, water, and energy—began in Berkeley, California. As my two weeks in the Bay Area come to a close, I am nervous and excited to begin travelling to Vietnam, Morocco, and Bolivia—the other three destinations in my program. My time in California has been interesting because the ease of…
This past Wednesday marked the twelfth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Whether you’re a New Yorker or not, whether you lost a community or family member or not, I’m certain that that day had a huge impact on many of your lives. For me, spending September 11, 2013 teaching in Clifden, Ireland was an eye-opening experience that inspired a lot of reflection. I spent the first two periods of the day sitting in on a…
An American Girl in Scotland I spent some of my last days in America preparing for Vassar’s freshman orientation as well as getting ready for my own “Fresher’s Week” in Edinburgh. That’s right – after days upon days of conflict coaching, leadership training, and house team bonding, I was off to become the very person that I was training to help. If that sounds confusing, imagine actually living through it. This twilight zone of a week began with me sobbing…
This semester, I am living in Amman, Jordan this semester with SIT’s Modernization and Social Change program. I decided that I wanted to go somewhere completely out of my comfort zone rather than to a comfortable Western European country, and thus headed to the Middle East for my JYA experience. I have been learning Arabic at Vassar for nearly two years now, and I really wanted a place in which to practice the language and become more confident in speaking it. This post is a…
Hi, everyone! My name is Colin Crilly and I’m a junior Biology major (with a possible Political Science correlate). This semester, I’ll be studying at University College London. It’s kind of like Vassar College…except that it’s the complete opposite of Vassar College—large, public, in the middle of a bustling metropolis, and without a fire-spinning circus group on campus (not officially, anyway). Interestingly enough, UCL works on a trimester system, which means that classes don’t start for another week. But instead of spending September at home…
Salut, tout le monde! I write this blog post from the apartment of my home-stay host Bernadette—a nurse who lives with two cats in the 2ème arrondissement of Paris. I’ve been in Paris since Saturday, September 7 after spending the previous two weeks in Bordeaux, France. My study-abroad program left on August 24 for Paris, and after a three-hour layover in Charles De Gaulle airport, we continued on to Bordeaux. Twenty-one jet-lagged students from Vassar, Wesleyan, Swarthmore, and Tufts arrived in Bordeaux on…
This semester, I am living and studying in Copenhagen, Denmark. Having never lived or spent much time in a big city, moving to Copenhagen has been a series of huge adjustments, filled with new learning experiences every day. So far, my favorite part of living in Copenhagen is the ardent bike culture here. Fighting with Amsterdam for the title of “Most Bicycle-Friendly City in the World,” biking is a dominating feature of life in Copenhagen. Everywhere you turn, there are…