Buongiorno, Torino!
Just about a week to go and then I’ll be in the air headed for northern Italy! It all seems so surreal right now that I’m not sure I’ll really believe it until we touch down in Turin and I check in to my dorm/home for the next five months. This has been a dream experience for almost my entire college career. I found out about this opportunity my freshman year when my then boyfriend (now fiance!!), Chris, heard about...
Going to Ghana
Hello! My name is Kelly Muston. I am a Master of Social Work student. I will be completing an international internship in Ghana in the Spring of 2019. I would like to say that I have some amazing motivation behind why I chose to study abroad, but it just is not true. I sat in the MSW program orientation and for the first time in my life considered studying abroad. I left that day knowing it was what I wanted to do. I also do not truly...
On The Shoulders of Giants
“This grave contains all that was Mortal of a Young English Poet Who on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his Heart at the Malicious Power of his Enemies Desired these Words to be engraven on his Tomb Stone: Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water. 24 February 1821.” The Tombstone of English Romantic poet John Keats These are the words engraved upon the tombstone of John Keats, marking the final resting place of the famous...
Planning – Thoughts After a Week in Florence
I am a planner. My new roommates identified that about me before I had even been on Italian soil for a full 48 hours. In our short time in Florence, I had already made multiple searches on Yelp and Google Maps for the next highly reviewed place to eat lunch, how long it would take us to get to our next meeting from the restaurant, and where we should grab gelato afterwards. You see, I don’t like the unknown or unexpected changes—I...
Dia duit!
My name is Blake, and I’m studying abroad at the University of Limerick in Ireland. For those that are wondering, “dia duit” is Gaelic for “God be with you,” which is how people say “hello” in Ireland. The past three weeks have been the best of my life! I traveled abroad for the first time, flew for the first time (my first flight ever was international), and traveled completely alone for the...
Intentionally Lost Luggage: Leaving Anxieties at the Airport
As a child growing up in the ever-expanding suburbs outside Chicago, Europe seemed more like a fantasy than an actual place I might someday visit. Aside from the semi-frequent road trips to Wisconsin, Michigan, and sometimes Florida, my family and I didn’t really travel much. I was almost a teenager before I saw the ocean for the first time in-person. The first (and only) time I left the United States was during a road trip to Niagara...