As much as I’ve been trying to ignore the fact that study abroad is not forever, sitting down to write this last blog forces me to acknowledge that my time in England is drawing to a close. I still have about half a month left in the UK, but my school term ends next week. Today I had my last seminar, which means that I’m basically now in what I (and other U.S. college students) know as finals week. However,…
Well, I’ve made it. The program has officially ended, and pretty soon I’ll be getting to say fa soifua to Samoa. Our papers were turned in and presented, we said goodbye to our families in Lotofaga, and I’ve embarked on a quest for gifts. As I find ways to pack my life back into 23 kilograms of checked baggage, I reflect on the three months that have passed. I start by asking myself how I got here. The night before…
The semester is starting to draw to a close. This is my final blog post for Far and Away, which is kind of funny because I do not actually leave Glasgow for good until December 20th. But it is starting to hit me that I am going to have to leave and return to the states eventually. Before I get into that though, I want to talk about my various adventures around Europe that I have been on the past…
Greetings from Bolivia! I am writing to you from the airport in La Paz, on our way to Cochabamba where we will meet our homestay families and spend the majority of our remaining time. Speaking Spanish has been so rewarding, and I am excited for a new city and a chance to immerse myself with the language in my new home. But first, let me take a few steps back from where I left off – on the train ride…
While we haven’t yet had Thanksgiving (in either the United States or Denmark – more on that in a second), it is now definitely Christmas season here in this little Nordic country. To the Danes, Christmas is almost entirely a secular holiday, called jul, which is where we get the word ‘yuletide’ (juletide), but not pronounced quite the same as in English. Some of the city bars have been decorated with garlands and fake snow for a few weeks now,…
Mālõ lava! Presently, I have no fun excursions to write about. That’s because it’s time for independent research! Yay!!!!!!!!! We have three and a half weeks allotted to conduct research and write a 20-30 page paper about a subject or organization of our choice. I’m doing my research on the Museum of Sāmoa, known in Sāmoan as the Falemata’aga. My paper focuses on the challenges that the Museum of Sāmoa faces in terms of preserving and interpreting tangible and intangible…
This brief pause to reflect upon the last two weeks since I’ve blogged is welcome. As soon as I finish this, I will hurry to my last class of the week, where I will then hurry to the airport and begin a weekend in Dublin, though I just fully unpacked from last weekend’s trip to Amsterdam yesterday. I still can’t believe I have the opportunity to do all of this; saving all year and working full time has paid off…
Ni sa bula! We left the country for the last time, until we leave for good. Our excursion, this time, was to the extraordinarily beautiful and diverse country of Fiji. Fiji is comprised of over 300 islands, many of which are uninhabited. The main island, Viti Levu (Greater Fiji) is where most of the population and economic activity takes place. We spent most of our time there. Our group took a hop, a skip, and a jump over the 180th…
Fall has come to Denmark. But as the locals warned us Americans upon our arrival, it’s a swift descent toward winter. While the temperatures are still quite mild (40’s to 50’s in Fahrenheit), the wind and rain are beginning to have a bite and the hours of daylight are waning fast. After all, it is November, though I thought I was hallucinating when I looked at the date a few days ago. Didn’t we just get here? Didn’t classes just…
After a long flight and travel, we stumbled off the bus with our unruly luggage and filed through a short, narrow entrance between two buildings. Inside, a labyrinth of streets unfolded before us; blues, reds, and purples lined the walls, interrupted only by murals, tile fountains, and storefronts. We established our home base in Rabat, the capital city, with classes held at the Center for Cross Cultural Learning (CCCL) located in the Médina. Médinas are the old, walled-in cities and…