I can count on one hand how many days are left in my program. I just finished my last assignment of the semester. My parents are arriving in a few days. The end is here. Four months ago, I counted the number of days in my program. One hundred and nineteen days of living in a new country, counted down one day at a time. Many of you probably read about how difficult I found the first month of my…
Almost two months into my stay in Copenhagen and it feels like home. I suppose that halfway through the semester it should feel like home, but as I’ve said before, I doubted that I would ever feel comfortable so far away from what I have called home. Finding a routine took a lot of work, but it puts everything into perspective when you do normal activities, such as grocery shopping or the weekly ritual of cinnamon rolls on Wednesdays. A…
It’s now December, which means that winter has officially settled on the city, which means drinking more tea and whiskey to warm up. Fortunately, there are plenty of tea shops and pubs to accommodate pretty much everyone in the city, even if every person spontaneously decided to get tea or whiskey at the exact same moment. Scotland really likes its tea and whiskey. I’ve become addicted to tea and biscuits, which I think is a promising sign of assimilating to…
A lot has happened since my last post. For starters, my parents came to Madrid to visit me about two weeks ago. They had just finished a bike trip around Cataluña, the northwestern autonomous region home to Barcelona. We spent the half-week they were here in Spain running from museum to museum (El Museo del Prado and The Thyssen), walking from end to end of Madrid despite my repeated pleas for a taxi, and eating delicious food that was definitely…
In my previous post, I wrote that one of the opportunities about studying abroad is the chance to travel easily to new, incredible places (when not in school). This past weekend, I traveled to Lagos, Portugal with a few friends! In Madrid, the 1st and 2nd of May are holidays—Spain observes International Worker’s Day on the 1st, and the 2nd is a local Madrid holiday commemorating the 1808 uprising against French rule. Today, neither International Worker’s Day nor el dos de…
Spring Retreat I just got back from Japan Study’s (the study abroad program I’m in) spring retreat at Minakami Onsen, a five-star ryokan (hotel with onsen, hot outdoor baths, as well as ofuro, hot indoor baths), about a three hour bus ride away from Tokyo. I am pretty exhausted, but in a good way. The spring retreat complements the fall retreat that our program had at Karuizawa, which has ofuro, sports facilities, and great views of Mt. Fuji. I’ve learned…
First Two Weeks in Kyoto A lot has happened in the past couple weeks–I’ve finished my first job at the Airinkan, the day care center for people with cognitive disabilities, and I’ve started my next job, at the Bazaar Cafe. I’ll do my best to neatly sum up how it has been. February 11 was a Japanese holiday, National Foundation Day (Kenkoku Kinen no Hi). This day celebrates the ascension of Japan’s first emperor, Emperor Jimmu (Thanks, Wikipedia!). For some…
I ought to preface my first post with a little about myself, and how I first approached the idea of JYA. From the get-go, I was fairly sure I was going to be a proud member of the JYStay crew. While my friends know that in the right situations I can be a bit of a motor-mouth, sharing a bit too much and talking a bit too fast, if I’m not with a group of close friends, I tend to…
One week ago, I was squeezing the last of my sweaters into my suitcases, double and triple-checking the weight of my luggage, and trying to figure out which Danish cell phone plan to buy, in final preparation for a semester studying at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad (DIS) in Copenhagen, Denmark. Very suddenly I was in the car with my family, driving to the airport – a drive that I had been picturing over and over again in my…
How is it that I have only one week left of my JYA experience? I’m not ready to say goodbye to Italia yet! This past month has been absolutely fantastic. To start, I took two amazing trips: one to Venice and the other to Rome. Venice is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. There are absolutely no cars or vespas. Instead, there are tons of boats and bridges to connect the city and its inhabitants. I loved getting lost on the tiny streets…