The Journey So Far… I can’t believe that I’m actually in Italy! I’ve been so excited about this trip for months, and now I’m finally here. This whole trip has been such an experience. It was my first time on a plane and I loved it. I watched two movies and ate every snack that was offered to me. I was basically living the life. It was incredibly hot when I arrived in Lecce for the E.C.CO summer session, but I adjusted to the climate pretty…
Takeoff I honestly had not allowed myself to think about the fact that I would be a couple continents away from my family until the day before I actually got on my first plane to London on the way to India. I think that, deep down inside myself, I didn’t think I would actually go through with the trip. This mindset was reinforced throughout the duration of my twelve hour flight, during which I consistently cursed myself and underwent the inner…
Day 1 I meet six other students after arriving in NOLA and we share a van to the hostel, which is located on 1660 Annunciation Street. The driver overheard us talking about our program—which takes us to Brazil, South Africa, and Vietnam after New Orleans—and said, “You can forget about those other countries, you’re gonna wanna stay here!” We then asked if he had any change for the fare, because we all only had twenties, and he said, “You work it out amongst yourselves….
As part of the Vassar-Wesleyan Madrid program, I’ve spent the last two weeks in Galicia’s capital, Santiago de Compostela. Galicia is one of Spain’s seventeen states, something I embarrassingly didn’t know until I arrived. However, after living here since August 18, touring a ton of cathedrals (some multiple times), frequenting way too many bars, and eating way too many tapas—I’m basically an expert. Just kidding. However, I have fallen into the rhythm of everyday living here, and all of us…
When it comes to putting food on the table in the PI business, a good reputation is like a good fedora: absolutely indispensable. It’s not good investigator etiquette to sling mud. But I would be making a grave mistake to avoid the blame here. It was me. Let the papers—Misc, Weekly Squat, Chronicle, Helicon—know. I bit the bullet and chipped my tooth; I ran the race and tripped halfway; I made huge mistakes. My first mistake: I followed a false…