What To Do When Things Go Wrong During Study Abroad
I have learned the hard way, through roughly 10 years of traveling abroad and two study abroad experiences, that it doesn’t matter how much you plan, things are always going to go wrong at some point or another. It might be that bad weather delays your flight, an unexpected issue causes an excursion you planned to get cancelled, or you simply get sick. All of these things happen a lot more frequently than you would hope, but I...
From Mountains to Sea Level: Back in the U.S.
I’ve now been back in the U.S. for two weeks, and though I was looking forward to spending time with family, it has been an interesting transition. I returned from Peru with an intestinal parasite and haven’t necessarily been living-it-up, but that aside, home has felt different. First and foremost, switching from speaking Spanish 95% of the time for six weeks to English all of the time is a very interesting transition. I...
Highlights Sometimes Cover Up the Struggles
The past two weeks I have hiked 9 different Incan and Pre-Incan ruins, I’ve spoken Spanish 90% of the time, and I’ve explored the places and people of Cusco, Peru and the Sacred Valley. All of this has been a wonderful period of growth both academically and personally, but often times my social media and the points which I mention to friends and family are just the highlight real. There are as many lows as highs and it can...
Living with a Host Family in Cusco, Peru
Initially, when I decided to study abroad one of my biggest concerns was the unknown of a host family. The program said we would get our housing assignments about two weeks before our program date. I did get the information as promised, but the information was an address, the host family’s last name, and a picture of the inside common room – thus it did very little to quell my concerns. My flight arrived at 5 am and I was...
Finally back to the States
Having spent 5 weeks in Germany, I felt that I wanted to stay longer, but alas I had to return to prepare for fall classes. The travel back home ended up being somewhat of a nightmare. First, a security incident in Munich left hundreds of people delayed or stranded. My flight thankfully wasn’t delayed too long, but the airport was on high alert. Then, due to going the cheap route on tickets, I spent 12 hours in the Dublin...
Coming Home!
I think that I may have had the most crazy series of return flights back the United States! My initial program in Europe in May was in Serbia, and so my round-trip flight to Europe was based out of the Belgrade airport. This meant that after my second program in Madrid wrapped up in July, I had to fly back to Serbia before then making my way back to the United States. I left Madrid on a Friday afternoon and flew to Paris. My flight...