It’s almost the end of February and I don’t where the time is going. At the University of Edinburgh, I’m lucky because my classes end on April 3rd – how crazy is that? But it also means I have a ton of papers and presentations to do in a very short amount of time. I think that’s part of the reason we have a week off, for no particular reason, in the middle of February. Like the calm before the storm….
Well, it’s 85 and sunny every day here in Bonaire: even when it rains the sun is still out. “Bonwhere?” you might ask. Bonaire is a tropical island, north of Venezuela. It is part of the ABC islands, made up of Aruba, Curacao, and Bonaire, legally a part of the Netherlands. I am attending school with CIEE, an organization that has study abroad programs all over the world. The program is busy; our day is scheduled from 7am to 8pm….
Two days before I was supposed to leave for Spelman I had a nervous breakdown. My mom was standing beside me and I was heaped over the couch, balling my eyes out. I kept thinking about my friends back home and how much I would miss them. And I was worried it would be hard to make new friends, especially being white at an HBCU (historically black college university). But I knew I wanted and needed a new perspective and…
If you’re looking for a happy-go-lucky, sugarcoated story of what it is like to live abroad, keep moving. If you want to know how I really feel about my time abroad so far, keep reading. This is not my first time traveling abroad. My father is a missionary to Haiti and I have gone with him three times so far. (It’s an amazing experience, but an entirely different story.) This is, however, the very first time in my life that…
It’s hard to believe that right now people at Vassar are taking classes, eating at the Deece, and participating in daily shenanigans while I’m sleeping in a bed in Brighton, England. I’m at the beginning of my term abroad at the University of Sussex, and everything still feels like one big practical joke, like I’m on The Truman Show or something. But I’m living it, and just trying to take it day by day. I had to go through international…
It’s February now and the only thing to be said for the weather is at least I’m not drowning in snow. It has snowed here a few times, much to my surprise, off and on, but more off than on. Down here, in lowland Edinburgh along the coast, the snow doesn’t really stick and we’re far more likely to have rain. We certainly don’t miss out on the cold though! While all my friends back in the Northeast are struggling…