Jett's Study Abroad Experience
Spring 2023
Spring 2023
A lot of my family and friends asked me if I was nervous for studying abroad and being alone in a foreign country, much less 13 foreign countries. I kept responding by telling everyone that I was truly not afraid to go travel and live abroad, and I could see that they often wouldn't really believe me. While I was unsure how things were going to go, I was not afraid to jump in and experience other cultures and live in an unfamiliar place. In fact, the emotions I was feeling were sadness and excitement. I was so sad to be leaving all of my loved ones for so long, but I was also excited to start an experience that I had been looking forward to for as long as I can remember.
There were certainly hard parts of being abroad, and my travels did not always go as planned, but the hardest part of the whole semester was having to come home from a place that I grew to love. I absolutely loved London, but I realized that Europe as a whole is where I want to end up someday and that regardless of what career I have, I want traveling to be an integral part of my profession. Aside from getting to fulfill one of my longest standing goals of going abroad in college, I also learned so much and stepped outside my comfort zone in a way that has changed my life forever. During my time abroad I solidified what I want to do after college, met amazing people from all over the world, and I grew not only as a student, but also as a student. As a reflection on my time abroad, I came up with 10 helpful tips for studying abroad, traveling, and having a better general idea of important things to remember when abroad.
Unfortunately, while this is the end of my list of 10 helpful tips, it's also the end of my blog and study abroad experience. I can't even begin to express my gratitude for the various means of support given to me by my family, girlfriend, friends, and scholarship donors. This type of experience is one that can truly make a student's academic career special and can give the student so many skills that simply go beyond what can be taught in the United States. I can't express how much this experience meant to me besides that it is one that I will truly treasure for the rest of my life. Thank you!
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Who would have guessed... Poland is by far one of the best places I was lucky enough to be able to travel to. Not only is the history rich, but the food is amazing, the people are friendly, the Soviet/European architecture is unreal, and you constantly feel the weight of the significant events that happened there. While Poland was one of the epicenters of the Holocaust, it now feels like a symbol of resilience and emphasizes the importance of never forgetting the past. During my time in Poland, which is also the last country of my trip, I stayed in Warsaw for 3 full days, took a 4.5-hour bus ride to Krakow on the 4th day, and then spent another full 3 days in Krakow before catching a flight back to London. This means that I got to spend roughly 8 days in Poland, and I loved every moment of it! Warsaw, Poland As sad as it was to leave Berlin, the moment I got to Warsaw and made it through customs, I quickly fell in love with everything having to do with Poland. I got in relatively late in the afternoon at about 3:00pm and I had to catch a train from the airport to get into the city. After the train ride I had to walk about a mile and a half to get to my hostel, and I stopped at the store on my way. Even though the walk was about 25 minutes, it felt much quicker since the entire city is filled with WWII monuments and has beautiful architecture all over the place. While the buildings are not as grand looking as buildings in Spain, for example, there is something special about old, soviet-style Coca-cola signs, old Mercedes-Benz offices, and cathedrals. Once I made it to my hostel, I was so happy to see that I finally was going to have a nice private room for the rest of my trip since my room in Krakow was also a private room. The rest of my night pretty much consisted of going for a short walk through the old town and grabbing some potato pancakes (latkes) for dinner before heading home and getting a good night of sleep. Day 1: On the first day, I pretty much had no plans like usual. Instead, I decided to just pin a bunch of things on a google maps list and just walk from place to place and see where I could get tickets. This ended up being incredibly efficient in Warsaw as a good portion of the things to see fall along a central avenue that runs down the whole downtown area. The things I saw included: 1. The Tin-Roofed Palace (and the apartment of Prince Jozef Poniatowski (pawn-yuh-tahv-ski)) 2. Sigismund's Column 3. The old town of Warsaw (also where my hostel was located) 4. Holy Cross Church 5. Had to get more potato latkes because they are one of the best things I have ever eaten. 6. The National Museum of Warsaw, which was a huge museum and had an exhibit called "Corsets Off" which celebrated contemporary paintings and portraits celebrating women's strength through history. Day 2: On my second day in Warsaw, I dedicated my time to visiting many of the monuments and museums dedicated to the Jewish people and the ghettos imposed by the Germans in WWII. I mostly went from monument to monument throughout the city and just tried to take time to recognize and remember the tragic incidents that happened there. After visiting all of the monuments, I walked over to the POLIN Museum of the History of the Polish Jews and the Warsaw Ghetto monument. I spent a good 5-6 hours in this museum so that I could really soak in the rich history of the central European Jews and understand the history of the culture beyond just that of the WWII. While I didn't cover the most ground on this day, it was one of the most informative days I have ever had when it came to understanding a critical part of the European and Jewish History. Also, word of advice, when you visit the Jewish Museum, definitely pay the 20 Zloty fee to get the audio guide as you won't regret it. It explains all the long paragraphs dotted around the museum, in a much more comprehensible form. Day 3: Day 3 was honestly filled with mostly walking, but the things that I walked to, and saw were absolutely amazing. The first thing I knew I wanted to see was the Palace of Culture and Science. Not only was the building spectacular, but there was also a local farmers market that I found where there were barely any tourists. None of the signs were in English and I couldn't say what most of the things being sold were, but walking around and hearing everyone speaking Polish was a very special experience. The reason I really wanted to go to this building though, was that you can pay about 4 dollars' worth of Zloty to take an elevator all the way to the top of the clock tower to get a 360-degree view of Warsaw. Usually, I'm a little stingy about going to the top of buildings in their elevators, because those usually cost a lot, but this one was super cheap and super worth it. After coming down from the building and enjoying the farmer's market, I stop and ordered some Polish Sausage and fries for lunch. I can honestly say that Polish sausage was my second favorite thing I ate in Poland after the potato latkes. For the rest of the afternoon, I walked over to and toured the Royal Castle in Warsaw. While most of this castle was completely destroyed during WWII, it was rebuilt as a memorial of Polish history. The few parts that were still original though, were absolutely stunning and think about how beautiful the castle would be if the rest was never destroyed. After the castle, I pretty much had to go back to the hostel and get all my things packed for the next leg of my stay in Poland. The bus I took the next morning, left at 9 am and was on the far side of the city, so I had to wake up early and take the overground tram system to the bus station. Krakow, Poland Honestly, the bus ride itself was super smooth. I can't say much about what the ride was like though as I pretty much fell asleep the moment, I left the station. When I got to Krakow though, instantly loved it just as much as Warsaw. There was much less soviet architecture there and much more of the European style of buildings that you would expect in Germany, partially due to the German occupation during WWII. My new hostel was located right next to a busy shopping area which made the street quite noisy, but overall, the area I was staying in Krakow felt more local than in Warsaw. Unfortunately, the rest of my day was mostly spent working on schoolwork for the Fall 2023 semester, but I was so excited to be there and the things I had planned for this city were going to be amazing. Day 1: Day 1, like always, was my day without a plan. I pretty much decided to spend the whole day going to visit Wawel (Va-vel) Royal Castle, and while I was there, I was there I saw the State Rooms, Royal Apartments, Crown Treasury, Armory, Royal Garden, and Thieves Tower. This castle was the original, besides the parts that got burned down in one of those great fires that every city in Europe has had at some point. After touring all of the best parts of the castle, I walked around, took tons of pictures, and came across a music festival that was happening in the old city. There were tons of street stalls where vendors were selling local snacks, ice cream, and different types of hand-made items, and there were tons of different live music being performed in more languages than I could even count. I ended up walking around and enjoying the music while indulging in multiple kinds of ice cream that I could not say the names of; however, they were much less sweet than what I am used to, and they tasted much more natural. While the festival was fun, there was one thing that I did not like. While I was walking around, I noticed people were taking advantage of the tourists by wearing Ukrainian flags and claiming they were refugees asking for money. This would make perfect sense except for that many of them had iPads and were saying that they accept credit cards or cash, which doesn't make much sense, but to make it worse, when you say no, they become really rude. I don't know for sure that this is a scam, but it is something I saw a lot and it seemed like an odd way for refugees to take donations. Overall, I absolutely loved the city even just from one day of walking around and I was already excited for the next couple days. Day 2: Day 2 in Krakow was honestly one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life, as I chose to visit Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II Birkenau. I hired a guide to take me and explain everything that we saw, and that same guide also picked me up from my hostel, which was very nice. Having a really good guide made the experience a lot more complete in my opinion, and it helped me understand everything that I was seeing. We first walked around Auschwitz I, which was the smaller of the 2 concentration camps, but it was also much more intact as the German's were not able to destroy much of this one. We then got to tour Auschwitz II Birkenau, which was much more destroyed as the Germans blew up a good portion of the buildings so that no one would ever know what all they were doing. This camp was also immensely bigger than Auschwitz I, as all you see are building (or their foundations) for as far as your eyes can see. To me the best part of the tour was the philosophy that the guide gave us though. We were told a lot about German's mistreating Jews and Jews mistreating each other, and many people think that this mistreatment of others dehumanized the Jews and Germans. Many people may say that they would have tried to help prisoners escape or would have been kind to all the people they were around or would have even disobeyed order secretly. Our guide said this "you never know if you would have been the good guy or the bad guy, and until you are truly immersed in a tragedy, you will never find out." When we were told this, I immediately wrote it down because it truly stuck with me when you think about how there is no way to know for sure if you would have even survived, much less have the audacity to disobey orders when your life is on the line. Day 3: On Day 3, my big plan was going to visit Oskar Schindler's Factor and to walk around the Jewish Quarter of Krakow. I bought tickets for 10 am, so I had to get up pretty early to make the walk over to the museum since it was about 3.5 miles away from where I was staying. While it seemed like a far walk, the route took me directly through the Jewish quarter of the city, which was absolutely beautiful, and the walk ended up only taking about 40 minutes. Once I got to the museum, I realized how fortunate I was that I had planned out my trip to Poland way ahead of time. I had thought ahead to buy my ticket to the museum in March, so when I got there and saw the huge line of people waiting to go in, I was very pleased as I go to go right in. The museum itself was more about the holocaust in general rather than Schindler's Factory; however, the layout of the museum basically created a symbolic timeline from the peaceful age in Krakow all the way through the end of WWII. It was definitely one of the better museums I saw during my trip, and the location in the Jewish quarter and in the actual factory was really special. On my way back, I did some shopping for some polish snacks and the music festival was still going strong, so I enjoyed some more ice cream and music. The very last thing I did in Krakow was visit the St. Mary's Basilica, which was also the last church building that I visited before coming back to the US. It was less grand than some of the other's I had seen, which could be because of its location in a large Jewish area, but it was still a very nice accent to such a beautiful old city. It was certainly a great way to end such an amazing month of traveling. After my last day in Krakow, I had an early flight back to London Heathrow the next morning. It was very bitter-sweet that my trip had come to an end, but I was also so excited to get ready to go back to the US. I, of course, did not want to leave Europe since I knew that it is where I want to live for my career, but I was also so excited to get see everyone back home and to tell everyone about my time studying abroad. This trip is one that I will never forget, and the experiences I had while traveling around in May were unlike anything I have done before! During the span of about 2 weeks, my trip took me to 4 cities across Italy and Germany. While I would love to give a breakdown of all four cities, there is just not enough hours in the day to write all of the feelings and fun experiences that I had. Instead, I'm going to talk about all the highlights of my time in each of the cities including Rome, Florence, Munich, and Berlin. Rome, Italy Rome was a beautiful city where I was able to see modern skyscrapers and ancient ruins of equal of might in city skyline. While this city had more tourists than I have ever seen in my life, it also had incredible monuments and ruins that you can only imagine when you read or watch anything about Roman mythology. The food including pizzas, pastas, lasagnas, and especially gelato, were honestly some of the best foods I've ever had, and the atmosphere of the restaurants are some of the most romantic I have ever encountered. There is absolutely a ton of very special things to see when you are in Rome, and I did go to as many as I could, but to be completely honest, I think I would have been just as satisfied if I just wandered around the city with no plan for the whole 3 days I was there. However, here is a list of things I saw while I was there: 1. The Colosseum 2. Chiesa di San Sebastiano al Palatino 3. Alter of the Fatherland 4. The Roman Forum 5. Palatine Hill 6. Trevi Fountain 7. The Pantheon 8. Catacombs of St. Callixtus (The biggest catacombs in Rome) I want to reiterate that while this is the majority of the big touristy things that I saw, I had so much fun just walking around the city. Many of the buildings in Rome are combined with ruins or have beautiful antique Italian architecture, and just being immersed in the culture and ambience of the city was a special experience in and of itself. Florence, Italy Florence was my favorite of the two cities that I visited in Italy for several reasons. The best part of being in Florence was that I was able to meet up with a couple friends who are other Shidler students and were studying abroad. We got to go out to eat several times and had the best lasagna and pasta in the entire world. They also showed me around the city since they were getting ready to come back to the US and had just spent an entire semester exploring Florence. Another reason that I preferred Florence was because there were way less people there and I did not have to push my way through any crowds or worry about people trying to get money by selling things like bracelets. Florence was just a much better place to take a stroll through the city and enjoy the cathedrals, eat good food, and take tons of amazing pictures. On a much more minor note, the weather in Florence was also much better than Rome. Not only is the climate just a bit cooler, but Florence is located in a more mountainous region where things feel a little less dry and muggy than in the big city of Rome. The ambience of Florence was also much different than Rome. It wasn't better or worse at all, as it was truly just very different. The streets were full of hustle and bustle still, but it was people shopping and walking around with their families and getting gelato/ice cream. There were also many more authentic family-owned restaurants that were just so delicious. Just to name a few of the things I did in Florence, I saw: 1. A huge Rose Garden 2. Piazzale Michelangelo 3. Stefano Bardini Museum (a totally underrated art museum that I had to myself since there is not much foot traffic by where it is located) 4. Piazza del Duomo 5. Basilica di Santa Trinita 6. The Central Market 7. A University Park and fortress I also was to list a couple of the things I ate while I was in Florence that were absolutely amazing! 1. Coffeemisu (Tiramisu Coffee at a local cafe) 2. Homemade Yogurt turned in Parfaits 3. Black Truffle Tortellini 4. The best brick oven pizza that I have ever had at La Borsa 5. Lasagna at a family-owned restaurant called Trattoria Katti I also want to include a whole bunch of pictures that I took while I was in Italy, so here is a bunch of pictures from both Rome and Florence. Munich, Germany As far as places that I could see myself living, Munich is at the top of the list. Everything about this city from the culture to the food to the general feel of day-to-day life, I could see this being a place that I could lead a very pleasant life. Another thing that made me instantly fall in love with Germany was that a large part of my ancestry comes from Germany, so getting a little view of where my family came from a long time ago was a very cool experience. Right off the bat, some of the things I loved most about this city was the architecture that consisted of very simple buildings that were different shades of pastel colors, food that ranged from huge pretzels to Weiner Schnitzel, and, of course, a very rich Bavarian history. I also really appreciated the cleanliness of this city despite the very busy streets and dense population. It was hilarious trying to decide which rubbish bin to throw my trash away in where there are 5 bins that are all meant for different types of trash. I can't say that I expected to love this city so much, and I was so disappointed that I only booked 2 days here. I had heard that people generally enjoy Berlin more, but I actually felt that, like Italy, I preferred the slightly smaller city with a lightly different culture. Nevertheless, here are some of the things I saw during my time in Munich. 1. Alte Pinakothek (An absolutely massive art museum) 2. The Munich Residenz (A castle in the middle of the city) 3. Frauenkirche (A cathedral) 4. St. Michael München (A cathedral) 5. Nymphenburg Palace and the huge botanical park surrounding it 6. Marienplatz 7. The tower of St. Peter (Skyline View of Munich) Unfortunately, this was about all I had time for since I only had 2 days and Nymphenburg palace was quite far from where I was staying. After the two cities in Poland, Munich is by far my 3rd favorite city that I visited in Europe, so here are some pictures of Munich. Berlin, Germany Last but certainly not least is the city of Berlin. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Berlin even though I was just talking about how I enjoyed Munich more. Berlin had no shortage of picturesque buildings, museums, restaurants, and parks. The people in Berlin were super kind and helpful, the museums explained the amazing history of Germany pre and post WWII, and the food was wonderful but different from what I had in Munich. The big distinction that I saw between Berlin and Munich, is that Berlin identifies as German, while Munich (which is in Germany), identifies specifically more as Bavarian. While the cultures are similar, it took me forever to figure out what the Bavarian flag was since I actually saw it being flown more than the German flag in Munich. Berlin also felt more disconnected from the European history we know of that is filled with things like castles, knights, and kings, and instead pretty much everything at every museum talked about WWII. This is not an issue as visiting places like memorials and the Berlin was extremely fascinating, but this is simply a difference that I noticed between Berlin and Munich. Another big difference that I noticed about Berlin, was that there are a lot more "hip" and "trendy" people. For example, there were lots more young people going to clubs and bars, and there were lots of parties in the hostels and restaurants. In Munich, it felt like things were much more centered around traditional and family events. So, needless to say, Berlin felt a lot busier and was full of a different kind of lifestyle than Munich. In Berlin, I mostly went to lots of museums and memorials since this was the start of the WWII heavy part of my trip, especially with me going to Poland next. The places I went to were: 1. The Jewish Museum (The tower of the Holocaust, the Garden of Exiles, and the Memory Void) 2. The Carl Marx Statue 3. The Space Needle 4. Neptunbrunnen 5. St. Mary's Church 6. Dussmann das Kulturkaufhaus (a really nice bookstore) 7. The Gemäldegalerie (A huge art museum) 8. Memorial to the Murdered Jews 9. Brandenburg Gate 10. The Berlin Wall Memorial (Plus the museum that is dotted along the wall) 11. A really cool Samurai Museum (Not sure why it was in Berlin, but I went in and was not disappointed, plus I had the place to myself basically) I spent 3 whole days in Berlin, so while this list does not seem super long for that amount of time, that would be because I also met some really cool people at my hostel that I spent some time with while I was there. We ate out a couple times together and then walked around some and had a good time overall. To finish off this blog though, here are some pictures of Berlin! After how much I loved Switzerland and Spain, I thought it would be really hard for any other places to compete, but I was wrong. The rest of my trip and all the other countries I visited, blew me away just as much. So, with that being said, I'll jump right into what happened next. Porto, Portugal The day I flew into Portugal was a very rough flight because it was super early in the morning. When I arrived in Porto, I spent most of the day, until around 2:30 pm, at a local cafe just catching up on things like schoolwork and this blog. Once I checked into my hostel, I pretty much spent the rest of the day taking a nap and so that I could enjoy the next 3 full days in Porto. Day 1: Day 1 in Porto was absolutely amazing, as to this day, I still think that Porto was one of the most picturesque cities that I have ever been to. Every street was just filled with life, and with cafes of all different types. At the end of every street, you have the chance of spotting a huge mosaic church or a grand train station with the buzzing of everyday life. So, needless to say, there was never any shortage of things to say seen even by the end of my stay when I had explored a good portion of the city. But, on day 1 I spent a good amount of time just wandering around with no specific plan, as I really wanted to get a lay of the land and just find random little gelato shops, restaurants, and museums that may not be featured on any map. Just by walking around, I ended up finding some of my favorite things that I was able to see even though some of the things I saw were really small establishments that barely anyone took the time to stop at. What I saw on this day was: 1: The Museu do Centro Hospitalar do Porto, a small museum made out of a very old pharmacy that talk about the start of modern medicine in Porto 2: The National Museum Soares dos Reis, a very nice art museum that had several special exhibits. This museum was also not busy at all, so I had the place to myself most of the time. 3: The Igreja do Carmo and the Secret House. This was a really nice mosaic church that also had a secret house that catholic families would have meetings in during the time that Christianity was not allowed. The ticket also allows you to climb onto the roof of the church, which is totally worth it because of the great view of the city skyline. 4: Sao Bento Station, which is a huge a train station in the heart of Porto that is completely filled with a huge a mosaic that covers all the walls. It was free to stop walk in and look at, which is amazing especially when the mosaic looked like something that you would see in an art museum. 5: A lookout viewpoint of the Ribiera. This was a look out that allows you to have a great view of Porto and the Douro River that runs through the middle of the city. Day 2: On day 2 I realized how lucky I was with my timing in Portugal, as I happened to be staying there during a huge graduation festival that is held every year for the graduating students. I kept seeing young people around that were wearing black robes (looked almost like the wizard robes from Harry Potter) and holding these black boxes with colorful ribbons sticking out of it. The first time I saw one of the students, I thought that it was a costume that they were wearing, but as it got to be later in the afternoon, I started seeing tons of students wearing these robes. Once it got to be about 5 pm, the life in the city exploded with excitement as the festival had really started and everyone started to party. I didn't know anyone there, but I walked around the festival and watched the street performers and got some food from street vendors. Even though I was only visiting the country, I felt so excited about this very local and important event. While the festival was fun though, I still saw a ton of other things earlier in the day, which included: 1: The Capela das Almas (The chapel of souls), which was the most beautiful on the mosaic churches that I saw. The whole building including the steeple was covered in a beautiful blue and white mosaic. 2: The Church of Saint Ildefonse. which I also consider a sister church of the chapel of souls as it was a bit bigger but followed the same build and mosaic. I was not able to go inside of this church though as the mosaic was getting fixed and there were huge gates around the church. 3: Went to a Gelato shop and watch some street performers since some Beatles songs. I never knew that gelato was so good in Portugal since I've only heard of it being in Italy but trust me when I say that the gelato in Portugal truly rivals that of the Italian gelato. Day 3: My third and final day in Portugal was probably one of the best days. That initial excitement of visiting such a beautiful place was still in full force as I went out for another day in Porto. What made this day even better was that there was still a buzz in the air from the graduation festival that happened the night before, so while the streets were cluttered, the people were still excited. To celebrate my last day, I of course had to get more gelato (the mango and strawberry flavors), but I also decided to go for a bit of a walk to a terraced garden area that overlooks the Ribeira of the Douro River and the beautiful Portuguese city scape on the sides of the valley. The spot that I ended up sitting and enjoying, had one of the best views of my entire trip as I got to look out over all the pinkish/red roofs of the city cottages and townhouses. From this spot I could also see 3 of the six famous bridges in Porto, along with the gondolas that run along riverbank to take people from the upper part of the city, so the lower riverwalk area. After enjoying the view, I followed this small hiking trail that ran along a path that was below a small cathedral. The view was good of course, but the draw of this path was a little stray cat hotel. While I think these cats are pampered by all the tourists, they were set up with a little wooden box that provided them with shelter and offered a place for people to feed them and give them water. At the end of the hiking trail there was a very sketchy looking concrete catwalk, that I decided to skip since it looked like it was crumbling, and it protruded out of the side of the cliff over the river. By this point in the day, it was pretty much time to get ready to catch my flight to one of the countries I was most excited about especially since I had a friend there that I was going to meet. So, the rest of the of the day pretty much consisted of me running back to my hostel and packing my things really fast so I could catch a train back to the airport. Before ending off this blog post, I want to say that I found Spain and Portugal to be really different. To me, Spain felt very different from the rest of Europe, except for the fact that the public transport was top notch as it is in most European countries. In Spain you could really feel the history, including in when it was under the rule of eastern cultures, but in Portugal you could really feel the Christianity driven culture. Of course, Christianity was very prevalent in both countries, but I could feel that the eastern cultural history of Spain was more relevant in everyday cultures. Also, initially people told me that there were lots of people that are pickpockets and scammers, and that lots of people are selling drugs, but I found this to be relatively minimal compared to what I was expecting. I felt very safe the whole time I was in both countries, and even felt pretty good when I had to carry around my luggage/backpack with me. There are absolutely bad areas in every city, but Madrid and Porto felt very secure to me and the people in both cities were incredibly friendly. The point is though, visit Portugal and Spain if you have time as both are incredibly rich in culture, people, and food! As you can see from the title of this post, I'm going to be jumping right back into the trip I began by traveling to Morocco since I had only been back in London for one day before I was back on another plane traveling to central Europe. This stretch of the trip had me leaving on April 27th, and not arriving back to London until May 31st. This meant that I was traveling for 35 days non-stop, which was honestly freeing, but also exhausting. While I could talk about the single day I spent in London between April 25th and April 27th, the only thing I really did was attend my very last class, so there isn't too much to say. Instead, I think I will get right into talking about my travel on the longest stretch of traveling that I have ever done. Geneva, Switzerland On April 27th, I took a train all the way from Roehampton to Gatwick airport, since I learned that Gatwick airport is actually much easier for traveling around Europe than Heathrow. My flight to Geneva departed at about 6:00 pm from London and landed at roughly 8:30 pm, which was nice because it meant that I did not have to travel around an unfamiliar city after dark, especially when it ended up being about 9:00 pm before I had clear customs and found a train into the city. Before I get to my impressions of the city though, I have to talk about the Swiss Alps, as even before I landed, I was able to see just how majestic those mountains are. I am from Colorado and love the Rocky Mountains with an undying passion, but the Swiss Alps are the most beautiful mountains I have ever seen. My first impression of the city was just as good though, as immediately after coming out of the train station in Geneva, I fell in love with the Swiss architecture, mountains, and French landscape that surrounded us on all sides. The buildings were simple, but you could see just how much money went in to creating this city. I initially came simply to see the United Nations' headquarters, but the reason I want to go back is for so much more. Not only is the future of my career there, but the chocolate amazing, the landscape is beautiful, the city is romantic and clean, and the food is good. The first night on the 27th though, I didn't do too much sight-seeing since it was pretty late, and I was still recovering from the trip I took to Morocco. I ended up just going to my hostel and turning in for the night so I could be rested up for my first day in Geneva. Geneva Day 1: On my first day in Geneva, I had decided to take a bus tour to see the Swiss Alps and La Mer de Glace. In order to get to the place we were going, we crossed the Swiss/French border by car and drove through the French countryside for about an hour before crossing another border back into Switzerland. We then arrived at a small town that's name slips my mind since I forgot to write it down. When we got to the little mountain town, there was some down time just to explore around. During this time, I took a walk with an older woman from Ukraine, which was a very eye-opening experience. She was telling me about how she is a refugee from Ukraine who is staying in Switzerland temporarily and is working as an ambassador. She also talked about how her family is still stuck in Ukraine, and even though the war is scary and unreasonable, she still loves her country and supports Ukraine's war effort. So, while this conversation and woman did not have anything to do with the actual tour, getting to talk to her and hear firsthand how the Russia/Ukraine war affects people was one of the coolest and most important experiences I had during my trip. After the downtime, the tour took us all on a cog railroad that went up the side of the mountain to what I would guess is about 12,000 ft. so we could see La Mer de Glace. The train ride was very cold, but also very worth it as during the whole ride, we all were able to see out across the valley to all the jagged peaks and snow-capped mountains and glaciers. At the top, we were given the option to walk up and down 520 stairs to go see some ice caves carved into the glacier that people are able to walk into the dark blue glacier and see the ice from an inside perspective. While the climb was extremely difficult, seeing the inside of the glacier and taking some cool pictures was also extremely worth it. By the time everyone finished the exhausting climb back up the 520 stairs, it was already time to head back to Geneva. The ride back was roughly 2 hours as we had to cross the same borders once again. When we got back, I pretty much just went back to the hostel since the stairs and tour had really made me tired and it was already about 7 pm. Geneva Day 2: My second day in Geneva was honestly just as amazing as the first, but this time, I actually spent the day in the city. Most of the stuff I did can mostly be covered in a list though, since I did lots of walking and saw lots of cool things. 1: I, of course, visited the United Nations and World Trade Organization. Seeing the UN flags were truly one of the most inspiring moments of my life, and I knew in that moment that someday I would be returning to work there and help change the world. 2: I went to the Red Cross/Red Crescent Museum, which was one of the best museums I have ever visited. Not only does that museum function as part of the Head Quarters for the Red Cross, but it also shows so much of the amazing things that the Red Cross does. The best part was that the museum gave real personal accounts of how the actions of the Red Cross help people around the world. The museum also had Red Cross messages that people wrote to loved ones saying that they are okay and are coming home, that absolutely restored my faith in humanity. 3: Saw the Broken Chair 4: Visited the Museum Ariana, which is essentially a giant Ceramic and China (as in plates, bowls, and other dishes) museum 5: Walked around the Geneva Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. 6: Went and looked for some authentic Swiss Chocolate. I had to get Toblerone (because I had to), and I bought a pistachio chocolate that was actually one of my favorite things I ate during the whole trip. Geneva Day 3: Just like the second day, I did so much that using a list may really be the best way to describe everything I did. 1: I visited St. Pierres Cathedral, which was honestly as thought provoking, beautiful, and majestic as any European cathedral would be expected to be. 2: Walked up Terrasse Agrippa D'aubigné, which while it was technically part of another cathedral, I saw it mostly as a terraced portion of the city that allowed you to look out across the skyline of Geneva and across Lake Geneva. 3: Toured the Tavel House, which is an old traditional Swiss town house that was turned into a museum about daily Swiss life and the history of Geneva. This museum was super small and easy to miss, but it was also one of the most informative and well-maintained city history museums that I saw during my travels. 4: Stopped by Eglise Russe, which is a Russian Eastern Orthodox church with had a bulbous roof, rather than the moral steeples that westerns build on their churches. 5: Walked around the Museum d'Art er d'Histoire, which was a really interesting art museum that blended contemporary, historical, and romantic art in very ingenious ways. 6: While walking back to my hostel, I came across the finish line of a huge bike race that blocked off the whole main boulevard of Geneva. I could not figure out what the name of the race was, or where the bikers were coming from, but there were tons of huge news vans, food trucks, and crowds of people everywhere. While I don't know what I happened to stumble across, it looked like a huge event that I am happy I got to see. The sad thing about this day though was that it was also my last day in Geneva and Switzerland. So, when I returned back to my hostel, I packed up all my stuff and prepared to leave early the next morning. I can't even begin to describe how much I loved Geneva, and I honestly often think about how much I could actually imagine living there. I truly believe in so many of the amazing organizations that have chosen to set up headquarters there, and I can only hope that I will get to be a part of that solution in the near future. Madrid, Spain Day 1 Madrid: As sad as it was to leave Geneva, I quickly became excited once again, when I arrived in Madrid bright and early at 6:50 am the same morning I left Geneva. This flight was very strange for me since I left Geneva at 6:30 am, flew for about 1 hour and 20 minutes, and then arrived in Spain at 6:50 am. While the flight actually makes perfect sense, when you are very tired, and slept for the whole flight, it really shocks your body to have a small blip in time like that. However, I didn't let this early flight put any damper on my day though, since I had until 3 pm before I could check into my hostel. I initially was a little worried about going to Spain especially by myself, since people were telling me to be careful about pickpocketing and such. However, as soon as I arrived in Madrid, I really loved the exciting culture, friendly people, colorful architecture. I ended up filling up the day doing a ton of things including: 1: Visiting the Palace of the region of Madrid (Palacio Real de Madrid) and the garden. This was especially cool, when I found a shaded bench overlooking the palace and garden, that also had a local man playing the accordion nearby. The ambience in the garden, with the huge looming palace and accordion music, was unlike anything I have ever experienced before. 2: Visited the Cathedral of the Almudena (Catedral de la Almudena). The cathedral was beautiful of course, but the best part was paying 3 Euros (with my student discount) to climb the Cathedral's tower. While the stairs were hot and tough, the view from the top was so worth it. Not only could you see the whole Palace, but you could look across the top of the whole city of Madrid and out into the Spanish countryside. 3: Before heading to my hostel for a long-needed nap and eventual dinner, I stopped at a local grocery store. I bought some things like apples, Fanta, and some raspberry cookies that I had never seen before. I know the Fanta seems like a funny and American choice, I want to put huge emphasis on the fact that orange Fanta tastes wildly different in Europe as it is much less sweet and synthetic tasting, and really truly tastes more like orange juice mixed with sprite. By the time I went shopping and looking at the palace and cathedral, it was about 2:30 pm. It may sound lame, but I did end up going to my hostel and sleeping till about 10 pm. I was so tired after my nap though, that I ended up just finishing my cookies and had an apple before going back sleep. Day 2 Madrid: Day two was another bus tour day. Pretty much everyone on my tour spoke poor English, but the draw of the tour was that I was able to get quick and easy transport to two walled cities called Avila and Segovia. While both of the towns actually felt very similar and were not far apart, to get to them from Madrid required going all the way through a mountain range, which would have been difficult to do on my own. In Avila I saw several things including: 1: The Monument of the Valley of the Fallen, which is ultimately a huge (like skyscraper sized) cross, that had a giant monastery underneath 2: The actual town of Avila, which is the hometown of Santa Theresa (Saint Theresa of Avila). We also got to see Santa Therasa's actual bedroom as well which, while I don't personally know a town about her, you could feel the religious significance of the town. 3: The Church and Birthplace of Santa Theresa, which is one of the oldest and most important parts of the town. 4: A small museum that that had some relics of Santa Theresa, as well as one of her actual fingers. The finger was very old and shriveled up, but we had to pay money to see it and were not allowed to take any pictures in order to preserve it. 5: The Basilica of San Vincente, which was a huge basilica that honestly felt almost too big for the size of Avila. The basilica was easily bigger than any of the palaces or churches that were in the town. 6: We also got to try some local egg tapas at a local restaurant, and they were absolutely delicious, especially after waking up early and walking around in the hot sun. In Segovia, which is another walled city that we went to after Avila, we saw: 1: The Alcazar de Segovia, which is a Spanish castle that many people believe to be the inspiration for Snow White's castle. 2: The Cathedral of Segovia. Again, not a ton to say besides that it is another absolutely breathtaking and intricately designed cathedral, that is just as jaw-dropping as the last. 3: Arguably the most impressive thing I saw was the Aqueduct that runs through Segovia from the mountains, all the way to the Alcazar de Segovia. This Aqueduct was the most impressive thing because it really shows just how impressive the engineering was during that period of this time. While our underground water pipes of today are much more convenient and practical, the aqueducts truly show the might of European empires back in the day. Following our time at the Aqueduct, the tour had about a 2-hour ride back to Madrid, where I pretty much dropped by the grocery store again and bought some sandwiches and such, and then headed back to the hostel catch up on some schoolwork for the rest of the day. Day 3 Madrid: One my last day in Madrid, I was not able to see a ton because I had several meetings. One was a meeting with some people back in Hawaii and another was with one of my teachers back in London just to wrap up the semester. While these meetings took a good portion of my afternoon, I decided a good way to spend the morning would be by going to the Spanish Museum of Prado (Museo Nacional del Prado), which I ended up spending close to 5 hours at. While I have been to tons of art museums, this one in particular still stands out as one of the most impressive to me. The art came from all over the entirety of Europe, and the authentic Spanish pieces were absolutely gorgeous. After finishing at the museum, I went back to my hostel and took my meetings, did laundry, and then also went and got some tapas for dinner before going to bed early for my flight to Porto, Portugal. I really did enjoy my time in Madrid more than I thought I would though. I initially hadn't really been planning on going to Spain, but I'm so happy I did because every part of my stay was really nice, really enjoyable, and really beautiful. While this whole blog was filled with exciting parts of my trip, this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the places I went. But these places definitely set a good mood and pace for what was next to come in my trip.
,Alright, I suppose it's time to start explaining what I have been doing around the world for the last month and a half. Well, frankly I've been doing so much that I'm only going to be able to talk about roughly the first week in Morocco in this blog post, but I'll get right into it. Morocco: When I left on April 20th, I flew from London Stansted to Rabat, Morocco with a friend. When we were at the airport, we had nothing but confidence that this was going to be one of the smoothest trips we had done so far, and that we would easily be crossing North/West Africa off the bucket list. Let me put it bluntly, this trip did not go very smoothly; however, it must be said that I still had a very positive experience and learned a ton more from this trip than I could have ever imagined. The first city that we flew to was Rabat, Morocco, which also happens to be the less-touristy capital of Morocco in the upper coastal area of the country. The moment we landed down at the airport, we were both very surprised at the amount of green that was around as well as just how developed the area was. By the time we got through customs and had our visas stamped into our passports, we immediately started to encounter some issues. Being a country that still relies heavily on cash, our first order of business was to pull money out of an ATM, which seems simple in concept, but when all of the ATMs are labeled Bank of Africa and only have French as the language, it becomes almost impossible to get money. We were lucky when a kind gentleman helped us to pull out money, which also put us in a position where we were ready to call a taxi and head to our hostel. Overall, this portion of the trip was easy since we had money and the taxi took us right to where we needed to be. We were quite surprised when the area we were staying was in the most local street market we had ever seen, as we were easily the only tourist around and we looked very out of place. Fortunately, the owner of the hostel had decided he would come meet us and show us around, which really helped. After checking into our hostel, we decided the best thing to do would be to go get some Shawarma at a local Syrian restaurant and then buy some bottled water since Americans shouldn't drink the tap water in Morocco. The owner ended up walking us to the restaurant when he said something that really broke my heart. He asked us where we were from, and when we said America he said, "I'm so thankful you don't come to my country and think I'm a terrorist since I have a Muslim beard and show you Syrian food." As you can imagine, it was so painful to see how our discrimination in America effects people even when they live all the way over on the other side of the world. It makes me realize that while we sit high and mighty, it not only makes people hate us, but it makes them assume that we are afraid of them. When we got to the restaurant though, the food was excellent, people were looking at us and kids kept on coming up asking us what our names were and if we could give them any money. This was a common theme throughout the rest of our time in Rabat, so I won't go much more into detail, but just keep in mind that this type of people looking at us really continued for a good portion of our trip. The next day was our only full day in Rabat, so we mostly just did some sight-seeing. I want to point out that we learned that it is really important to look out for scams in the public/tourist areas. No one ever offers help for free, so just keep that in mind when people try to show you around or give you a unique experience. I'm not saying to tell them no if you want the experience, but just be prepare for them to ask for money at the end. I'm not going to bring up scams anymore in the rest of my blogs though, because I really don't want to draw light to the negative things that can often become a generalization of people in countries. I, of course, will always advise people to use caution in crowded/touristy areas, but remember that there are more good people than bad people in this world. Just because people look different from yourself does not make them less human. Each person you will meet is beautiful in their own way, and even the people who may try and scam have a story if you are willing to talk to them and treat them like a human being. Just remember where you are, the political/economic environment that you are in, and what makes people do what they do. But anyways, the things we saw in Rabat included: - A beach and pier overlooking the Atlantic Moroccan coastline - The Mausoleum of Mohammed - Hassan Tower - The Kabash of the Udayas - A celebration of Eid on the night that Ramadan ended where everyone was feasting to break their last long fast of the year. - Got some Syrian turmeric chicken and rice at the same restaurant as the night before The next day we had to take a train from Rabat to Marrakesh. This was an extremely interesting experience because we were easily the only tourists that were on this train and the entire ride was complete pandemonium. Pretty much we were two tourists on a train full of very excited local people. It was very fun, but we were also on pretty high alert simply because there were always tons of people right in our space and we basically had all of our stuff on us. When we got to Marrakesh though, we had the craziest taxi experience. I honestly believe that this taxi experience was one of the most weird and thrilling experiences of my life. Basically, when we left the train station, taxi drivers flock around you trying to get you to take their ride (keep in mind, Marrakesh has a ton more tourists than Rabat). We eventually found a guy who was a bit further away who offered to take us to our hostel for 100 Dirhams (about $10). I agreed, and he told us that he was parked a little way away, which meant we had to follow him. I want to stress that this was in a very public space so there really was no danger especially in broad daylight, but when we got to his car, it had no license plates, two windows were missing, the doors could only be unlocked from the inside of the car, and the inside was missing most of the interior. Even though it appeared that half the car was missing, and the car only moved at what felt like about 35 mph, we were on our way to the old city where our hostel was. When we started driving, it became very evident that the driver did not speak English at all but was expecting me to give him directions. Luckily since many of the words in French (the language he was speaking I think), are similar to that of Spanish, I was able to guess at what would make sense to him. So, for about 20 minutes, I was directing the 3 of us in an old janky car around a city that I did not know by using a broken understanding of a language I don't know. Believe it or not though, we made it to our hostel with no problem, which honestly was something I was very proud of when we got there. The rest of the night did not go as planned though, so what I'm about to explain is in no way me bashing on the country. I thought Morocco was beautiful and almost all the people we met were very nice, but the infrastructure is not as well-kept and advanced as most westerners take for granted at home. When we got to our hostel, we found that our room had no lights and no outlets, and the only place we could shower and have running water was down 3 stories in the building next to where our room was. To do things like charge our phones, we had to sit outside by an outlet and just wait, and when it got dark outside, we had to just sit in darkness in our room since there were no lights. The biggest lack of infrastructure though actually had to do with money. Keep in mind that you have to pay for everything with cash and that when we arrived in Marrakesh, it was Saturday night. We had just run out of money since we had to pay for our hostel and had decided that we were going to go find an ATM and then get dinner in the main square. We went to the only ATMs around and they were completely empty, and with no other choice, we were asking around about where to get money. We ended up finding out that the ATMs were not going to be filled until around Monday afternoon. This was somewhat scary to hear since we had no money, no food, and mostly no idea of where we were. After a moment of feeling screwed, I remembered I had about 5 dollars' worth of Turkish Lira, and my friend had about 20 dollars' worth of Euros. This meant that we were able to exchange our money at a currency exchange, which was annoying because you get ripped off at those, but our need for money outweighed our desire to save money. After that, we decided to get dinner which ended up being mint tea with couscous and chicken, which let me say, while most people may get scared away from traditional food like that, it was absolutely delicious and Moroccan mint tea is now one of my favorite things to drink in the entire world. This meal really marked the end of our issues as well, which was very nice. The next two days can really be summed up in two lists since it was mostly just sight-seeing. So, on the first full day in Marrakesh we saw: - Snake Charmers - Koutoubia (an ancient mosque) - Some huge narrow street markets that we explored for almost 2 hours and didn't even find the end of - Tons of horse and camel carriages - Bahia Palace - A really amazing French cafe called Les Tarbouches that served the most delicious mint tea of all (I will put a picture of the tea at the end) - Jemaa el-Fnaa (the main market square in the old city) On the 2nd day in Marrakesh we took a bus into the Atlas Mountains and saw tons of things including: - A small Argan Oil Production Center ran entirely by Moroccan Women - The highest road in Africa - Atlas Studios where movies like The Passion of Christ, Cleopatra, The Gladiator, and many more were filmed (The studio is located in the middle of Ouarzazate in the desert) - A UNESCO World Heritage Site called the Ksar Aït Benhaddou which is pretty much a giant city on a mountain made of clay buildings (Again, I'll include a picture) Unfortunately, after the day that we went into the Atlas Mountains, it was time for me to leave. Nothing too exciting happened here as I asked the hostel staff to arrange a taxi for me to go to the airport, and that was about it. The reason I couldn't stay another day is because one day after I got back to London, I was already preparing to leave on my next flight to Switzerland. Honestly though, I was only just starting to actually settle down being in Morocco by the time I had to leave, but I'm super thankful that I made the decision to go even though I did feel a little nervous. Even though it was a crazy trip, none of what happened deters me from going back there and continuing to travel outside my comfort zone. I never felt that I was in danger or in a unsafe situation. I really truly grew as an individual while I was there. I believe everyone should travel there and see what it's like because while it's a culture everyone knows exists, it's also one that most people don't give the time to explore. I made it back from my trip to the Middle East, and boy was it an amazing trip! The experience was surreal as I found that countries that have a bad reputation in the United States, are actually very beautiful and full of some of the most gracious people in the whole world. Before and during the trip there were people who were worried about this trip including family, friends, and even people I have met at Roehampton during the semester. People constantly talked about it being unsafe and many people were unwilling to consider going with me. I can't blame them, but I also think it's unfair to judge countries and people based purely off of few bad things that happened in the past. I will talk more about this at the end of the blog though, as I am excited to get right into the trip. To start off, the itinerary of the trip went like this. I first flew from London to Istanbul, Turkey with a layover in Athens, Greece. I then spent 3 full days in Istanbul, and on the fourth day, took another flight from Turkey to Dubai, UAE with a layover in Bahrain. I spent another 3 full days in Dubai, before returning to back to London with another layover in Istanbul. This means I was essentially gone from April 2nd to April 11th, as I got into the airport at about 11 pm on April 10th. Another important thing to bring up quickly is that while I want to focus on what happened during my stay in each country, I do want to touch on security in these countries before anything else. The thing that made people worry about this trip was security, as the middle east is known for unrest surrounding civil wars, terrorism, and armed conflict. I do think that this blinds people to the real beauty and culture that these countries have to offer, but these concerns are also genuinely valid and should be considered before making a trip like this. I won't hide the fact that airport security and customs were extremely strict. I was questioned going both directions to and from London while I was at the Istanbul airport, and there are multiple sets of security at each Middle Eastern airport. In fact, at the airport in Istanbul when I was traveling from Dubai back to London, they required me to go through standard airport security (even though I was on a layover and did not have checked bags) and customs security that had bag scanners and metal detectors. Then at my gate they checked my passport 2 times, my boarding pass 3 times, questioned me, unpacked my entire bag, swabbed my shoes, and patted me down. So, obviously it cannot be denied that there is strong security presence, as airport security is very strict, and you see heavily armed guards everywhere. This all being said though, when I was in each country, there was never a moment where I felt unsafe. Every person that I met was extremely nice and wanted to teach you about their store or the country, so you could always ask for help from everyone if you got stuck. I felt very secure and welcome everywhere I went and would strongly encourage everyone to take an opportunity to travel to eastern countries, as they will truly be unlike anything you have ever experienced before. Now as I explain this trip, I am not going to go day by day, because that would simply take way too long, and I still would not be able to cover everything. Instead, I am going to talk about the best parts of each country and make a list of everything I did. Istanbul, Turkey It's hard to even know where to start with Turkey... Istanbul is one of the only cities in the world that is split between two continents by the Bosphorus Straight. This means that you get the best of both worlds as you have some of the most delicious food in the world that falls under Turkish cuisine and buildings that are reminiscent of gorgeous European cathedrals but are filled instead with the holy Arabic inscriptions of the Quran and colors coming from the vibrant dyes that were carried along The Silk Road. There is also no shortage of things to do as you can push your way through the bustling grand bazaar and negotiate your way to the best prices, or you can wander through the world famous Hagia Sophia which you can appreciate as a museum, holy place of Islam, or former Christian church. Turkey is the remains of the once world sprawling Ottoman Empire till the fall of the sultanate, that gave birth to the Republic of Turkey. This means that while Islam is the national religion of Turkey, you see a mix religious influence ranging from Catholic to Judaism to Islam. The only religion that is not widely practiced here is Eastern Orthodox, as Turkey (Ottoman Empire) had a long history of wars with Russia. As for what I actually did while I was there though, I stayed in the part of city called Sultanahmet which is on the European side of the city and is the heart of what was previously called Constantinople. This is where the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, and the Hagia Sophia are located, as well as tons of street food vendors and a local bazaar called the Arasta Bazaar. On the first day, I arrived in the city at about 10 am, so I figured I should get right to exploring. My first order of business was to learn more about Middle Eastern culture because while we are taught about Islam in school, that information means next to nothing once you are actually immersed in the culture. So, I figured the best thing to do would be to visit the Blue Mosque and the Museum of Turkish and Islamic art. Both of these places exposed me to the holy prophet Mohammed and taught me straight away about how much the religion is based on respect and requires people to follow important rules (such as women having to cover their hair to enter a mosque). These helped me gain an understanding of the culture and history, as well as exposed me to a religion that largely determines most of what happens in the Middle East. On the second day I decided to walk all over the city and through the grand bazaar. I also took a ferry over to the other side of Istanbul across the Bosphorus called Üsküdar, which was my very first time visiting the continent of Asia. While the city was relatively similar despite being on different continents, the experience of being able to switch continents in about 15 minutes at a cost of about 10 dollars round trip is very special in itself. After walking around Üsküdar, I took the ferry back over to Sultanahmet and decided to walk around and find a food called doner kebab. Once I found it, it only costed about 2 dollars and it was essentially a wrap that is filled with vegetables and meat that is carved off of a giant rotating skewer of meat. To finish off the day then, I took a boat cruise along the Bosphorus and Golden Horn that shared more of the history of famous landmarks such as Galeta Tower, Hagia Sophia, and many others. On the third, and last, day in Turkey I took a guided walking tour, that only have 4 other people besides me who got to spend an entire day with a Local man name Emre who took us to and explain the history of the Hagia Sophia, Basilica Cistern, and Topkapi Palace. This was a very special experience because he was very knowledgeable and learning the history of a city is so much better when you have a local person who is willing to explain all of the small details of a place rather than just reading a bunch of plaques. The Hagia Sophia and Basilica Cistern showcased almost a thousand years of history that Istanbul has as it was owned by the Holy Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, and now Turkey, as the architecture would get changed as ownership changed creating a collage of beautiful architecture everywhere you look. The Topkapi palace was also very fascinating as it basically explained everything that had to do with the lifestyle of the sultan which was the person/title of the person who ruled the Ottoman empire for almost a thousand years. It also made me realize how inaccurately the movie Aladdin actually portrays the culture surrounding the sultan. While that sounds silly, the rich luxurious lifestyle that the sultan appears to have in Aladdin is very unrealistic, as the sultan actually lived a very simple lifestyle with minimal furniture and almost zero contact with women. Following the end of my tour I ended up going back to my hostel in order to sleep since I had to wake up at about 1:30 am the next day to head to the airport to go to Dubai. To finish this section of my trip off though, here are some pictures of the Hagia Sophia, Turkish flag, Kebab, Blue Mosque, and Topkapi Palace. Dubai, United Arab Emirates Oddly enough, the most daunting part of the trip was actually my flight to Dubai. During this flight, the flight path was sent through Syria and Iraq, and then I had a layover in Bahrain. For those who do not know where Bahrain is, this is a small island nation right off the coast of Saudi Arabia. This was nerve-wracking for me because this way my very first time being such a severe minority. I want to make it clear though that the fear was not out of being around different people, as my main concern was more than I did not know how I would ask for help if I needed it, but I quickly settled in as I realized that many people could speak English to some extent even though English is not one of the official languages. This fear was even further extinguished the moment I landed in Dubai though. Before I even landed, I was incredibly amazed by what I was seeing. Upon seeing land for the first time flying into Dubai, you are immediately greeted with a sight of the man-made palm islands and the tallest building in the world: the Burj Khalifa. The Burj Khalifa in particular was one of the things I wanted to see most in the entire world, as when I flew in and saw it pierce the sky bringing a whole new definition to the idea of a space needle, I was in awe. Once I landed, I was able to get into the country pretty easily, as there was very little questioning, and the customs agent didn't hardly talk to me. I also didn't need to get any foreign currency as I was able to pay for everything in Dubai with Google/Apple pay. In order to get to my Airbnb I took the metro system which was incredibly clean and very timely. The night I got there I didn't do a whole lot since I had been traveling for almost 15 hours by that point, so I just ate dinner really quick and went to bed shortly after (even on accident as the moment I laid down I couldn't help but close my eyes) so I could start to enjoy the city the next day. My first day, I made a direct line to the Burj Khalifa, which honestly... was exactly as amazing as I imagined it would be. It was so tall that the top started to look foggy because of how far away it was. In fact, I would argue that there is really nothing that I have ever seen that can quite compare to the might and impressiveness of the Burj. However, after seeing the Burj and taking tons of picture of it, I walked around downtown Dubai and saw several landmarks such as the Dubai Opera house, Souk Al Bahar (a local market), and Mall of Dubai (the biggest shopping mall in the world). If I'm being honest, I am not usually into things like shopping malls when I explore a new country, but Dubai's modern culture can only be explained by calling it a "millionaires paradise" as most of the population is Indian and Bangladeshi expats who are able to afford the expensive price tag for life in Dubai. So unfortunately, much of tradition culture in Dubai has been drowned out, but don't worry, I made sure to find that traditional culture before I left. On this day I also learned that the only people who can BUY land in Dubai are the local people who have family that is traditionally from the Emirates. Anyone else who wants to live in Dubai can only do so on a visa and are not allowed to buy any property. The population of Dubai is roughly 10 million, but only 1.5 million actually own property, are residents, and from Dubai. The other 8.5 million people who live in Dubai are expats who are on a visa and are all renting property. I can't stress it enough though, when I say those 8.5 million are ALL on a visa. Not a single person who comes from somewhere besides the UAE can be a resident, meaning that the only way to become a resident of Dubai is to be born from a traditional family who has been in Dubai for generations. So, I suppose the national culture is preserved, but it is hard to find. The second day I saw: The Burj Al Arab (the world's only 7-star hotel), the Jumeirah Mosque (a traditional Syrian style mosque), The Arabic Art Center, and the Dubai Gold/spice Souk in the ancient city of Deira. In the Souk I was able to try traditional Emirati tea that was very sweet and tasted of cardamon and Saffron. The saffron from the Arabian Peninsula is the highest quality in the world, so it was quite a treat getting to try it for free when it is usually very expensive. I was also able to try some dates and smell some crystal incense that was probably the strongest scent that I have ever smelled as it literally brought tears to my eyes in the split second that I smelled it. On the way back from the souk I took a traditional Abra boat that took me a few other people across the natural river that separates the ancient city of Deira from the modern city of Dubai. After that It was getting to be later afternoon and it was finally time to go to the top of the Burj Khalifa. When I got there the museum on the bottom went through the whole process of the Burj slowly being built up over the years and how this feat of creating the tallest building is one that the Middle East carries much pride over. The elevator to the top took almost 2 full minutes, which for an elevator ride is quite long. Once you reach the top the doors open to one of the most amazing views in the world, as you go directly outside on to a wooden platform that puts you right into the outside air. At 2500 feet (125 floors) above the ground you can see above all the other skyscrapers and look either over towards the palm islands, out to sea, or out into the vast Arabian Desert. After about an hour of taking tons of pictures and just marveling at where I physically was in the world, I decided to head down. Before I talk about my last day though, there is an important thing that I feel needs discussed. While I was in the Souk, I was with a couple other American's. The shop that we were invited in to in order to try the tea and dates (which are considered holy foods in Islam), and to smell the incense, the shop owner was asking people if they knew what the incense was. One of the Americans thought it was funny to suggest that it was crystal meth and made a bunch of people laugh, and you could clearly see the hurt in the shop owners face. Afterwards when people were trying the dates and tea someone took a bite of a date and spit it back out into their hand and started telling the people around them how gross it was. When I saw this, I not only felt embarrassed, but I also felt ashamed and angry. Things that American's may think are funny such as the crystal meth joke and telling people how gross they found the date is really offensive, especially to someone gracious enough to invite us into their store and share their culture with us. Dates are considered a gift and they are one of the holiest foods because of the prophet Mohammed eating them after fasting for Ramadan. It is unacceptable to make jokes like that and trash on another in the fashion that I saw in that store. The only thing that makes it worse is that these were adults that I was watching that were doing this. I can't help but feel shame that people can be so disrespectful and rude to such a beautiful culture, so when I hear that other culture hate Americans, this is proof of why we are looked down on. As a whole, American's need to do better and while I am not accusing anyone in particular, it hurts so many people when we can't be accepting of other cultures and treat them as equals. The third, and last, day of my time in Dubai was another very full day. To start the day, I was out onto the Palm Jumeirah and saw the world class Atlantis Hotel and the Burj Al Arab. This was incredible, because these huge islands, blue water, massive hotel, and whole ambience is completely man-made. After the Palm, I headed over to another mosque called the Blue Mosque, and as the name suggest this mosque was model after the Blue Mosque in Istanbul and was created by the same person. While this mosque was considerable smaller than the one in Istanbul, I was given a really good understanding of how Ramadan works and was shown some of the hand-made Qurans that are used for the daily prayers. After the Mosque though I went to another spice souk where I was given the opportunity to try on a full Arabian outfit including the Thawb and Keffiyeh, which are the respectively the white dress and head wrap that men in the Arabian countries wear. It was an honor to get to try it on with the help of a random local and it gave me a huge amount of respect for the men who wear it every day even in the desert heat as it covers the whole body. To round off the day, and the trip, I was able to stop at a traditional restaurant and got to try traditional Arabian coffee with ground cardamon, and a delicious local bread called Emirati Rigag. The next morning, I had to wake up and head right to the airport for my flight back to London. While I was very sad that it was time to leave, I was also so thankful that I got to have this opportunity and was able to experience the Middle East when it is so commonly overlooked because of the bad stigma that it has in the United States. But to finish, here are some of the best pictures from Dubai. Again, during this trip I felt so much sadness about the beliefs of the United States. Because of events such as 9/11 and the terrorist attacks that we hear about on the news, we give this unfair reputation to every single person in the Middle East, and it's really unfortunate. The culture that is cultivate through Islam in the Middle East is one graciousness and kindness unlike anything that can be seen in western cultures. And when I say this, I don't mean one is better over the other, as I simply mean that they are different. The only way to experience these beautiful eastern cultures is to swallow the unlikely fear that something could happen, and step outside of our comfort zone. It is absolutely important to make sure you are safe, but deciding to shun all travel to the Middle East is not being careful, as it really just comes off more as discrimination. The people there are not terrorist and Islam creates quite a beautiful culture. There is extremist in all cultures including Christianity and Judaism, so the discrimination that is built into American society against Muslims just because there are some extremists that have done bad things in the past is extremely unfair. I'm not asking everyone to travel to the Middle East at any chance you get, but I am asking everyone to reevaluate how they view the Middle East and its people. Give it a chance and it just might become your favorite place in the world! Unfortunately, not every week can be an amazing trip to another country, and these last two weeks have certainly not been the most exciting. But what it has been, is relaxing 2 weeks where I finished the actual "study" portion of Study Abroad. I have used these last two weeks to finish all of my assignments, make sure I have all the clothes I need for my upcoming trips, and just really make sure that I am caught up on sleep so that I can make it through the next two months of essentially full-time traveling. So, as of right now I am completely done with 3 of my 5 classes, and the next assessment is already queued up and started. My goal is to have all of my assessments and classwork done by the time I leave on April 2nd for Turkey and the UAE, but I may have about one day of work left to do when I get back on April 11th. I also have several other things that I need to do such as scholarship work and finishing my very last class for the University professor that came with the cohort, but for the most part that is all just logistical boring stuff that there is no need for me to go into detail on. While I said that there was no crazy traveling that happened during the last 2 weeks, I realize that is not entirely true, as I just didn't leave the country. I did however go up to York which is a historical town that is far north of London. We all only stayed one night, but we jammed in a ton of activities including: 1: A nighttime ghost tour of York 2: A guided tour of York Minster 3: Tour of the UNESCO world heritage site of Fountains Abbey + the Water Gardens 4: Visited the Shambles (which really felt like something right out of Harry Potter) 5: Walked along the wall surrounding York 6: Visited Clifford's Tower That is everything, but keep in mind that we did this all in about 18 hours of actual time spent in the city. The other exciting thing that I have been working on is my travel plans for all of April and May. I finalized them last night, so here is the itinerary is as follows: April 2 - April 6: Istanbul, Turkey April 6 - April 10: Dubai, UAE April 20 - April 22: Rabat, Morocco April 22 - April 25: Marrakesh, Morocco April 27 - May 1: Geneva, Switzerland May 1 - May 4: Madrid, Spain May 4 - May 8: Porto, Portugal May 8 - May 12: Rome, Italy May 12 - May 16: Florence, Italy May 16 - May 19: Munich, Germany May 19 - May 23: Berlin, Germany May 23 - May 27: Warsaw, Poland May 27 - May 31: Krakow Poland May 31 - June 10: London June 10: Colorado, USA An important note in here is that there will be no new post until around April 12th, and then there will most likely be no blogs between April 20th and May 31st due to tons of traveling. I will try my best to post around May 16th, but there is no guarantee. I will make sure to catch up between May 31st and June 10th though. See you guys in about 2 weeks! This week has been relatively the same as the previous week as far as schoolwork goes, however, the trip that I went on is one of the best I have ever been on. The place we decided to go was a very small archipelago country called Malta, and if you are like me then you most likely have never even heard of this place till just now. Turns out that Malta is a group of 3 islands that have had heavy influence from Egypt when it comes to the cuisine and architecture. But there are also many aspects of British culture that penetrated the local culture around the time period of World War II. So, when we got off the plane and started driving through the city on the first night, it was very cool seeing these narrow streets that almost consume you with these very tall limestone buildings that look like they came right out of an ancient civilization. Over this weekend, we left on Thursday to fly to Malta, and then came back Sunday night, so we really only had two full days there. Like last time, I'll talk about each of the 2 days since there really isn't much that happened on the day we flew there and left. The first picture I am going to add though, is a picture of our first sight directly out the front door of the hostel we stayed in. You can see just how different this place is right off the bat. Day 1: We got to our hostel at about 1 am the night before, but that didn't stop us from being up and at it bright and early at 8 am. To start off the day we decided to go try some local Maltese food at a little cafe that a bunch of local people were eating at. We weren't very sure about what to order to we decided to just order whatever they recommended. What we ended up with were these breakfast sandwiches made with a bread called Ftira, that had scrambled eggs, sausage, and lettuce, although they also usually come with lots of tomato as well. Also keep in mind that while the country is called Malta, the name of the island we were actually staying on during our trip was also called Malta, and we stayed in the capital city of Valletta. It was so delicious, and it only costed 4€ or about $4.50. After we left the day got very busy, so I'll put the rest in a list. 1: We went and toured St. Elmo's War Museum, which is a giant military fort on the end of the city of Valletta overlooking the Mediterranean. 2: Walked over and saw the upper and lower Barrakka gardens that overlook the harbor between the 3 cities and have many little temple-like buildings. 3: After walking around for a while we walked by St. John's Co-cathedral and got Gelato since the gelato there is very good due to Malta being in close proximity to Italy/Sicily. 4: We took a dinghy across the Grand Harbor to the city of Senglea where we saw a whole bunch of huge yachts, a very old cathedral called St. Lawrence's Catholic Church, and the American University of Malta. 5: After taking a bigger ferry back across the harbor, we went and got Gelato again... And went to see the city gate to Valletta. 6: We watched the traditional firing of the cannon that they do every single night to mark the transition to the night hours of the day. 7: To finish the night we went and got some very authentic Italian food at a restaurant that hand-made the pasta right out on the street and set up tables on the step of a giant staircase. I really should have taken a picture of this restaurant since we ended up coming back again the second day and my description really does a bad job at explaining just how cool this place really was. At the end of the day, we just went back to the Hostel and relax for the rest of the night because we walked almost 20 miles this day and it was significantly hotter from what we have been used to in London. That being said though, even after just the first day, this was instantly my favorite trip since coming to Europe so far. But to finish off this first day, here are a couple picture of the day. Day 2: While day one made me very fond of Malta right away, day 2 was by far my favorite day of the trip. On this day we took a ride over to the country's second biggest island called Gozo. But before I start talking about that, we had a very cool breakfast experience that made the day start off in a really great way. Basically, we needed to get breakfast really fast, and typically nothing opens till 9 am on the weekends in Malta. We quickly started to realize a problem since the bus that we needed was leaving at 8:45 am and we figured we should probably eat before we go to a rural island for the entire day. We decided out best bet would be to go back to the traditional cafe we ate at on the first day. When we got there it was closed, but the lady who had served us the day before was there and recognized us. She ended up inviting us back into the kitchen an hour before the restaurant opened and let us have fresh pastries called Pustizzis, which are like a very flaky croissant that is filled with ricotta cheese. It was really delicious, and the kindness that we were shown even as two foreign kids was unlike anything I have really experienced before. But anyways, now it was time to leave for Gozo. This required us to ride a bus to the very end tip of the island and then take a giant ferry over across the water. Then we went with a guide to tour the whole entire island, which was the most beautiful place I have ever seen in my life. We ended up seeing: 1: The temples of Ggantija, which is a UNESCO world heritage site and a very old place of worship 2: We had a very traditional lunch which consisted of a vegetable (tasted mostly like potato) soup, with bread, porkchop, and fruit for dessert. And then, of course, we got to taste some traditional wines, which were quite interesting. 3: We tasted a bunch of different traditional Gozitan foods such as goat cheese, Gozo coffee, and prickly pear jam/fruit. 4: We went to several viewpoints to see Dwejra Bay and the Sanap Cliffs (which were the most amazing sight I have ever seen in my entire life. They were covered in a thin mist the entire time from the waves crashing against them and the raw scale of the cliffs were insanely huge.) 5: Visited the capital city of Victoria (or also known as Rabat before being renamed) and hiked up the many steps to go inside the Citadel which is essentially a giant walled-in city on the top of a mountain. The view from the top of the wall gave a 360-degree view of the entire island. The view from the top was arguable the only thing that even came close to the how amazing the Sanap Cliffs were. 6: After walking around the Citadel and Victoria, we took the ferry back over to Malta and made a direct line to the Italian restaurant and some more gelato to finish off the trip. Day 3:
As I'm writing I realize that I would be doing a disservice if I did not talk about arguably the most exciting (not in the good sense) part of the trip on day 3. The only thing we did on this day was go to the airport and fly home, but it was not as smooth as you would think. To set the scene, we had just boarded the plane, and it was noticeably windy, but nothing really out of the ordinary. As everyone was fastening into our seats, they told us that there was a strong headwind and that we would take off when we get a window. The fact that they said we needed a window to take off was a red flag, but still, I didn't think much of it. We waited for about 30 minutes after we were supposed to take off and then started taxiing, and then we eventually made it to the runway. You could hear the engines starting to get ready to send us off and you could almost feel the plane start moving, and then all of a sudden, they said that we could not take off yet because it was too windy once again. We waited probably about another 25 minutes, when they finally said to brace and get ready for take-off. Once we were in the air, everything was pretty stable, and the sky was clear with the only difference being that we were flying higher than normal to avoid the wind. We got over Malta and Gozo, and Sicily was coming into sight when out of nowhere, the worst turbulence I have ever felt started. The whole plane was lurching around, and the flight attendants were getting thrown around as they were trying to hand out barfbags and get back to their seats. Keep in mind that the plane was also much higher than normal and was absolutely thrashing about, so it was very unsettling. I would imagine most people know how scary that type of experience is, so I doubt I really need to explain much further, but the entire 4-hour flight felt absolutely terrifying. I am unsure if I have ever been more relieved to finish a flight, but I was sure glad when that one was done! Anyways, even with the flight back being crazy for an entire 4 hours, it was an incredible trip and I will definitely be going back! This week was super eventful, productive, and honestly just fun. As the title points out, assessment season has really been hitting this week as students are scrambling to get the formative assessments done, which essentially means that everyone is trying to finish their drafts for the summative assessments that must be submitted at the end of the semester. While assessments aren't fun, I can't help but laugh a little because of the scramble that every student seems to do before they have to submit an assessment. The day that a formative was due, the library was packed, and attendance was at an all-time low in class due to people waiting till the last minute to do their assignments and then needing to cram right before its due so they can get it done on time. While I completely understand waiting till the last minute to get things done, I felt that these assessments are easy if you give yourself sufficient time to complete them. As a matter of fact, I'm currently trying to finish all of my assessments a month early so I can travel for all of April and May, and I still feel that I am ahead of everyone else and perfectly on track to getting mine all done early and in good quality. But anyways, that's the not fun part of this blog and I'm sure everyone is wondering about the other part of the title hinting towards a trip to Denmark. I'll just start of by saying that this trip went immeasurably better and has moved Denmark to being one of my favorite places I have ever seen. While I can't say that I would want to live there, it is one of the most picturesque and tranquil cities I have ever been lucky enough to visit. So, that being said, I am going to break this trip down to a day-by-day like the last one. Again, I went on this trip with a friend, so I wasn't by myself on this trip either, but there really wasn't a single moment where things didn't go well. Day 1: On this day, we arrived at Copenhagen airport (Københavns Lufthavn) at about 2 pm (or about 14:00 by European standards). Since Copenhagen is part of the EU, we needed to go through customs, and this being my first time going through a customs checkpoint, I got my first stamp in my passport. After getting through the "border" we were free to roam around the country, so our first order of business was getting to our hotel. This was fairly easy since public transport is pretty accessible in Copenhagen, as there is not only a bus system, but also an underground system like London. Once we navigated through the underground to the west side of Copenhagen and had become sufficiently confused by the pronunciations of Danish words, we came out the train station and were very surprised when we realized that the Danish drive on the right side of the road. We found this out when we almost got hit when we looked the wrong before crossing the road since we were so used to looking the opposite direction in the UK when crossing the road. After dropping our stuff off in the hotel room, we went for a walk to look for a restaurant. We didn't end up finding anything too special to eat, but we did learn that more people ride bikes than in cars in Denmark, and that it is very cold in March. For the rest of the night though, we just walked around and then headed back to get a good night of sleep since we knew the next days would be super busy. Day 2: On day 2 we walked 24 km, which translates to almost 15 miles. We did so much that the only way I can really describe everything we did is by making a list. So, we did the following: 1: Found some Danish Pastries for breakfast 2: Walked around Kastellet, which is a fortress facing Sweden on the coastline 3: Saw a statue of a mermaid that inspired the Little Mermaid 4: Toured Rosenborg Castle (One of my favorite Castles I have seen in Europe) 5: Went to Nyhavn, which is the picturesque colorful buildings 6: Saw the changing of the guards at Amelienborg 7: Went and sat in Frederiks Kirke (Marble Church) 8: Met up with a friend at a Cafe, and had a delicious Danish brunch 9: Walked to Grundtvig's Kirke (Church) and listened to the organ play. After we did everything, we went back and pretty much went to sleep since we were so tired from walking and being cold. We also learned that walking shoes are very good for this city since we got pretty bad blisters. But overall, this day was absolutely amazing. The pictures I am attaching are of Nyhavn, Rosenborg Castle, the mermaid statue, and a picture that I took of the flag that was at Kastellet. Day 3: This day was not actually spent in Copenhagen, as we took a 40-minute train ride up to Hillerød so that we could tour Frederiksborg Castle (the biggest renaissance castle in Scandinavia). This castle was absolutely beautiful, and also felt like an endless maze as we walked around the inside. While this sounds like I'm complaining, its actually quite the opposite, as we were wandering from room to room with our heads looking up at the beautiful murals on the ceilings and gorgeous tapestries that hung on the walls that were woven all over Scandinavia. After we left the castle, we then walked through the town in search of cinnamon rolls (or Kanelsnegles) as the signs in the Cafe/bakeries would say. We found them super easily as we never realized that cinnamon rolls are one of the best things to eat in Denmark. The interesting part was that they tasted a little different, as they are much thinner and chewier, and are of course made with much better ingredients. Needless to say, that Kanelsnegle was the easily the best thing that I ate in Denmark. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of it though... After the bakery, we decided to head home and go for a walk before we went and had dinner. On this walk we ended up walking through a huge cemetery and finding a lake/canal thing where it felt like everyone was hanging out to spend their Saturday night as the sun was setting. It was so beautiful, and the perfect way to end our couple of day in Denmark. The pictures I am including here are of Frederiksborg Castle. Day 4: Unfortunately, there is not a ton to say about this day since our flight left at about noon, but we did go to a local bakery and have one more really Danish pastry, of which I got a dark chocolate croissant. The last thing that I will talk about for this trip though was my first experience of being somewhere where the first language is not English. While English is also an official language of Denmark and most people there are able to speak it alongside Danish, most people default to speaking Danish. This would be very interesting when people would try to talk to us, and they would start speaking in Danish. They, of course, switch to English pretty quick when they heard us say "sorry, what was that again?", but the feeling of having no idea what they are saying is kind of scary and also really cool. This experience really started to make me feel like I am seeing the rest of the world for the first time in a different way that I have ever been exposed to. Now that I'm stepping out of my comfort zone though, it's off to Malta next weekend where the official language is Maltese (majority Arabic, with mixes of English and Italian). So, needless to say, next weekend should be awesome too! I have known for a long time that one of my ambitions in life is to travel as much as possible and see the world, and until this last weekend, I had never really had any experience of what traveling really is... But boy did I learn pretty quick this weekend on my trip to Scotland. It all started a week and a half ago when I initially started to plan my trip to Scotland, as my friend and I really only had one goal of going north to see the Northern lights. We had booked our tickets to a town called Inverness which is on the upper northern region of Scotland, with a plan to then take a train to a much more remote town on the Isle of Skye called Uig. Long story short, this did not happen at all. I am going to break down this trip day by day to help explain the full extent of the chaos that was this trip. But keep in mind as you read this, that despite being someone who has a grand goal of traveling all over the world, I have very little experience to my name. Day 1: On this day, there was really very little that actually went wrong if I'm being honest. In the morning I quickly finished packing my backpack so that I could quickly go catch the train since the budget airline we were using to fly out only flies out of some of the airports that are farther away. The crazy part about this flight from London to Inverness, was that to fly across the country, the flight was only about an hour and a half, and the airport that we flew into is one of the smallest I have ever seen. This airport only had 8 flights that flew in and left each day, and the one concourse only had 3 gates. So, our initial reaction was already that we had flown out to a very cold and very small town, which in and of itself is a very daunting idea. This first night also happened to be the first time either of us had stayed in a hostel, which for those who don't know is like a hotel, but instead of having your own room, you are sharing a room that has 4 to 6 bunk beds and there are other travelers staying with you. Personally, I actually really liked meeting the other travelers since a couple were our age, but I was also really glad I had a friend with me because the next morning things were going to get crazy. Day 2: We woke up quite early so that we could quickly go grab some food at the store and then rush to take our train out to the much more remote town. When we got to the train station though, we started seeing train after train get cancelled due to 60 mph winds and very heavy rain that was happening throughout the country. This continued until finally, and inevitably, we watched our train flash red and blink to say cancelled for the next couple days. This quickly presented a problem because all of a sudden, we had no idea what we were going to do since we had no idea what to do in Inverness and we had no place to stay for the whole weekend. Following our train getting cancelled, we ran back to the grocery store so that we could call all of our reservations and let them know we were not coming and that we need a refund (most were accommodating, but not all gave us money back). After that we decided that it would be best not to stay in Inverness so we walked over to the bus station to see where we could buy tickets to. It didn't matter too much where we went since we didn't have anywhere to stay anyways, but luckily there was cheap tickets for a roundtrip to Edinburgh which is a much bigger city and is much closer to the rest of the UK. So, we hopped on the bus and started looking around for where we would stay that night and found a pretty cheap hostel that we could stay at for 2 nights. By the time we ended up arriving in Edinburgh was getting close to being dark, so we quickly checked into our hostel (which we were lucky enough to have our own room at) and then went and found dinner at a local pub. After we ate, we decided to look around the area and ended up seeing my favorite abbey since arriving in the UK, and the best dressed looking street performers I have ever seen who was playing the bagpipes and wearing a full traditional Scottish uniform. Needless to say, the moment we arrive in Edinburgh I already knew that we had found success even in the shadow of everything falling apart. What I learned was that you have to be willing to be a good sport even when things don't go right, because we could have been in a much worse situation if we got frustrated or upset. Day 3: This was actually the only full day that we had in Edinburgh, which in complete honestly was perfectly okay with me. We did so many cool things on this day, but I'm only going to list them because if I were to talk about every single one this blog would be longer than it already is going to be. 1- We went and saw the Holyroodhouse Palace which is still a functioning palace that was used by Queen Elizabeth and is going to be continued to be used by the royal family going forward. During this tour we saw the whole royal procession, and the ruins of the abbey that was destroyed over the years. 2- We walked to Greyfriars Kirkyard which is where Thomas Riddell is buried, and yes that is the person who is the inspiration for he who must not be named in Harry Potter. 3- We saw the National Gallery of Scotland and the National Museum of Scotland 4- We went and toured a scotch whiskey distillery where we tried gin and scotch whiskey 5- We had some of the best fish n chips that I have ever had 6- Scotts Monument 7- We saw Edinburgh castle which is a UNESCO world heritage site. I will make a slideshow of all of these as well, but this was one of the best days I had had since moving out here to the UK. Day 4 & 5:
Day 4 was really the least exciting of the days as it was pretty much fully devoted to just taking the bus back to Inverness and finding a place to stay when we got there since our flight home was flying out of Inverness. On the bright side of the bus right back, we got a full scenic ride through the Scottish countryside, and we got a great view of Loch Ness which was very beautiful. Note: we did not see the real Nessie :( The hostel we stayed at was one of my favorites yet though, as it was up high on a hill side next to Inverness castle and it overlooked the whole town with a great view of the Inverness Cathedral. On day 5 we did not have a ton of time to walk around unfortunately since we did have to catch our flight, but we still tried to make the most of the day. The initial plan had been to go visit Loch Ness, but the wind was still blowing at about 30 mph and it was very cold and rainy, so we ultimately decided against risking getting stranded at Lochness and missing our flight. While we may have had a chance to see Nessie by getting stranded, we decided to walk along the river Ness and visit the cathedral. Along the way we did find a big wooden Nessie that I took a wonderful picture on. This picture is the one I am adding at the end. Unfortunately, as our time walking along the river Ness came to an end, so too did our time in Scotland. While it was frustrating that our whole trip was derailed, it also helped us to go with the flow and create a trip that took us so much further than we could have ever expected. While I hope that the rest of our trips go more smoothly, I do know that it will be okay even when plans fall through. This blog doesn't even cover half the things I could have expressed about this trip, but every part of our time out there was memorable, and this is a trip that I have learned way more than I would have ever expected from. This week was definitely one that I will remember for a very long time. Of course, there are always two parts of study abroad which are the study part where you have to read, go to class, and do assignments, and then there is the fun part which is enjoying the abroad aspect of the experience. This week was one where I really embraced the abroad portion of being in London, as I saw some of the famous places from the Beatles, went to Bath, saw Stonehenge, and tried some of the best food I have ever eaten. This was a jam-packed week, but one of the most fun weeks yet. To start off my list, I went and saw Abbey Road Studios. This studio is not exactly one that only the Beatles recorded at, but it is where one of their most famous albums is named after, and where they recorded some of the best songs that the world as ever seen. Being one of the biggest Beatles fans that walks the Earth, this was one of those moments that was meant a ton to me. The other really cool part of this week was the excursion that all the study abroad people went on to Stonehenge and Bath. Going into this excursion, I knew Stonehenge was going to be awesome, but I had very little knowledge about Bath. Turns out Stonehenge is even bigger than I thought, and Bath is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. Our tour guide taught us that Stonehenge was a huge structure used to keep track of the lunar/solar calendar and that the rocks used to build the actual henge were from 20 miles away and would take over a year to process each rock, including moving shaping, and assembling. Bath on the other hand is a gorgeous town that displays tons of roman influence. While we were there, we visited the Abbey, tons of Jane Austen sites (or places made famous by her) and had some of the most delicious and traditional English food that I have ever eaten. One of the restaurants that was recommended to us by our tour guide was a local pub called the raven which is known for the mash and pies that they make, which is essentially a pie that has meat inside (usually beef), served over mash potatoes doused in gravy. It was also served with steamed peas and carrots, which were a very nice touch as well. While all of the traveling around is super fun, I can't forget to mention the hours of studying that I put in behind the scenes though. I have made some really cool connections with not only local people, but also people from tons of countries all over the world, and even people that are from right at home in Hawaii. This continues to be one of the most positive experiences I could have ever asked for!
I also just want to say a quick thank you to everyone who supports me endlessly while I am out here! I know it's hard to talk to me while I'm out here, I know that I have not been great about getting things done in a timely manner, but this experience means a lot to me and I'm grateful for all the people in my life who helped make this possible for me and who have been supporting me! It's shocking to think that I have already been here in London for 3 weeks, as it feels like just yesterday that I arrived in the Heathrow airport feeling super nervous about living in a new country. While the excitement has set in and I'm certain that I want to live here someday, there are a couple things that I realize you must get used to throughout day-to-day life in the United Kingdom.
The first very important part of local life that takes getting used to is public transportation everywhere. While this is really convenient, and quite honestly, preferable to owning a car for me, there are also problems that arise here in the form of strikes. This week was my first time experiencing a train strike, which I didn't realize are actually very common here. It essentially means that workers who are responsible for running the National Rail Services and Underground services all take days off at the same time in order to protest for better wages and working conditions. By striking, all train services are interrupted and shutdown till the workers come back to work, which sends a message to the government. While I believe that this is an extremely important cause, there are huge repercussions when hundreds of thousands of people rely on train services to get around. I experienced my first train strike on Friday, February 3rd (which happens to be my birthday), when my group was on the way to see a show on the west end of London. This strike shutdown the whole rail system going north/east and caused the rest of the rail lines to get very crowded. This turned a trip that should have taken 45 minutes, into a trip that took close to 2 hours. I can't complain about the strikes since I agree with the reason, but I also strongly sympathize with all the people who are affected by the shutdown of public transportation. The next day-to-day life aspect that I realize is important to get used to is that London is a very multi-cultural city. I knew this coming into study abroad, but it became very apparent to me as I sit in my classes. The moment I really realized just how diverse this country was, was in my global marketing class when my tutor (essentially the same as a professor in UK universities) was showing the class different examples of advertisements coming from around the world. Some of the advertisements would be considered extremely offensive in the United States, however when we were shown these ads in class, many people found them to be quite logical and acceptable. I won't give any specific examples, but these moments were eye-opening for me, as it set in just how different cultures can be. I always knew that cultures were very different around the world, but it does not always feel entirely real until you experience it yourself, and I truly wish that everyone could have moments where they get exposed to experiences that connect them with the rest of the world on a whole new level. While these were just a few examples of day-to-day life that are different between the UK and the US, this week also consisted of my 21st birthday which was a super fun. Of course, students come out to different countries to study, but it's also important for them to go out and see the world and connect with people, so they can see the world through other lenses. This being said, aside from seeing the rail strike, a big group of students from Hawaii went out with me to celebrate my birthday. We ended up going to a small mom and pop shop to get some of the best fish n chips that we had ever had, and then we traveled all the way over to Wembley Stadium to see an amazing performance of the Broadway musical Newsies. This night in particular was really special because it took us very far out of our way due to the train strikes, and also having fish n chips at such a small little pub allowed us to be much more exposed to the British culture and just have fun with all the people that came out from Hawaii. While this week went by very fast there were so many fun moments, eye-opening moments, and moments that I will never forget. I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked this week since a big part of being here has just been living in the moment, especially with all the strikes that have been happening (there were strikes every day that got frustrating and confusing). However, I did take a picture that I will leave here at the end of the post, of a gorgeous street that I came across when I was out on my own one day. Another week, another post! I can't hardly believe that I have already completed my first week of classes as it feels like I just got here a little bit ago. However, in this post I want to talk about everything that I have learned about the differences between classes here at Roehampton, and classes back in the US. First though, I have to talk about some of the highlight of this week. The best part of this week had to have been the river boat cruise that all the study abroad kids took along the river Thames. Although we had to leave super early in the morning and the cruise was extremely cold, we got to see tons of really cool sights including Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, London Tower, the Shard, and Tower bridge. The boat then dropped the whole group off in Greenwich where we were met by a local guide of toured us around telling us all about Greenwich and the significance of the city. While that is all more information than I can possibly hope to fit in this blog post, I'll leave this story with a picture. Now for the not as fun, but very interesting part, being classes here at Roehampton. They are very different in many ways, with the biggest difference being the setup of the classes. Back in Hawaii, students are very used to a format that usually host several sessions of the class each with various assignments being due on a weekly (or sometimes daily) basis. This means that the professors are much more involved in the students learning process and expect students to be kept up with the rest of the class. Roehampton does things very differently. In the UK there isn't really a concept of a "professor" teaching a class, and instead classes are split into a lecture and a seminar, and sometimes there is an extra online clinic that is required for students to attend as well. The lecture is led by a "lecturer," which for American students would be the same as a professor, however, students then also have a tutor for their seminars, which is usually the point of contact that a student would go to in order to get help or ask questions. Overall, the lecture is very similar to any lecture than a professor in an American university would offer, but the seminars are a session where students go and work with other students to lead discussion-based lessons and apply what they have learned. The biggest difference above all else though, is the assignments that are given to students. Well actually, it's more of the lack of assignments, as students in the UK are expected to follow much more self-guided learning. Lectures, and tutors for the most part, are much less involved in the learning process that students undergo during their time in university. Each module, as classes are called in the UK, is assigned one big assignment that usually takes the form of a 2,500-word report that is due sometime at the end of the semester. These can be research-based reports, class-based reports, or simply a creation of the professors desired learning outcome for the students, but this one assignment can be responsible for deciding up to 100% of the students end grade. While this sounds scary, it is much less rigorous than one would be led to believe since the grading scale is very different in the UK as well. While most American students would aim for 90% or higher in a class in order to get an A, students in United Kingdom universities are expected to get around 65% and up in order to get an A. This may seem like quite an odd concept, but the purpose is so that truly outstanding pieces of work have much more opportunity to be celebrated rather than just getting 100% like 10 other papers. So, while the process is different, it is not anymore scary or intense than a class back at home. My last thought while on the topic of education here in the UK, I realize that many people local to Europe are multilingual speaking 2,3, or even more languages. This caught me very off guard when I met a friend that is from the Netherlands who is able to speak 4 languages. It caught me off guard in a way that really inspired me though, as I began to think about how disconnected I feel from the rest of the world while living in the US. I no doubt feel very fortunate to have grown up in such a stable country with so much opportunity, but I can't help feeling like the education we are given in the US is very biased in the way we are taught. We are taught in one language, we are taught America-centric history, and we are relatively closed away from diversifying our schools. I can't help but feel slightly sad about how our schools are taught in this way sometimes, and I really feel like my eyes have been opened to the endless opportunities that are out there in the rest of the world. I truly have begun to strive to have those opportunities to be multilingual and study/work in a multicultural environment where everyone's voices are heard. The moment has come where I have finally touched down in London in the United Kingdom. While little me would be thoroughly impressed that I have finally been able to start my journey of traveling and learning about the world that I have had for longer than I can remember, there has still been a fair share of difficulties upon getting here and getting used to life in the UK. But let me share a few of the many things I have already jumped into since arriving. Day 1: I arrived at the airport after a very long flight that took roughly 17 hours from taking off in Hawaii to landing in London. While my experience in a fancy airplane with TVs and meals was super cool, my first view of London while the plane was starting it's descent into the new country was even better. While flying over, I got my first glimpses of Big Ben, the London Tower, the Eye of London, and the best yet, a red double decker bus! After deplaning and finding my way through the airport, I finally met some Roehampton people, as well as meeting up with another of my friends from Hawaii as well. We were told to walk out to bus in which there was 32-degree Fahrenheit weather waiting for us as we walked out the door, and then we were on our way to Roehampton. On arrival, I quickly found my group, including many students from Hawaii, several from Missouri, and even someone from the Netherlands. We were all so jet-lagged and tired from traveling that after getting our rooms all set up and buying some groceries, we all passed out pretty quickly. Day 2: This day was the least exciting of all of the arrival days, as there were hours and hours of orientations. We did have to wake up fairly early, but when I looked out my window, I saw a "snowy" view that was unlike anything I have ever really seen before, especially in Hawaii. After that my whole group quickly bundled up the best we could and took our walk over to the orientation. I would be lying if I said there was anything too interesting to say about the orientation, but as soon as it was over, my group was already back out and about ready to see London. While we never actually made it to the city on this day, we did head over to the next closest town called Putney to walk around and look at the beautiful store fronts till it was time to come back home for the night and get rested up for the next day going into the city. Day 3: This was the day I immediately fell in love with the life here in this country, as we were all very excited to make our way into London city as soon as we were all woken up and ready to go. In order to get there was had to take a bus to Putney, and then grab a ride on the Underground. We chose to get off at Westminster because we all knew that our first order of business was definitely to see Big Ben. This moment was one we decided to remember with the picture I added here. We then decided to fill the rest of our day by walking around seeing things such as London Bridge, Buckingham Palace, and China Town, which we had some of the best food I have had since getting here. By the end of this day, we got home at around 9 pm after getting off the bus at the wrong stop and having to walk home in the dark. But while it was a long walk, it was all in high spirits and more excited than words can describe. Day 4: We all woke up very late at this after the long day we had had the previous day, but the group decided that the thing we all wanted to do the most was to go to the top of the Shard. While the tickets were pricey, we decided that it would be fun to go at night and see the city skyline when it was lit up by the lights of all the buildings. Until it was time to go at around 4:30 pm (keep in mind that it gets dark here around 5 pm), we all spent the day sleeping and preparing for our classes. When it was time to go though, it was so cold and we all knew it was only going to be colder at the top of the Shard, but that was no reason for us to not go. We ended up getting the coolest view of the city and I found friends that I am almost certainly going to become very good friends with throughout this semester. That being said though, I have to include this picture of the skyline because it is way too gorgeous to leave out. Day 5: This was the best day in my opinion, because not only did I get to see a castle, but I got to do it with 3 really fun and awesome people. We woke up fairly earlier trying to think of what we should do on our last day before school starts, and we ended up deciding that it would be super fun to head over to Windsor Castle. This required us to take the overground train for about 40 minutes out to a town called Windsor, and let me say, this town was the epitome of being an English town. Each building had its own little unique store front with cobblestones paths leading down the alley ways and stores. While we already had classes looming above our heads, this was one of the highlights of my semester and I know it's just the start of so many more amazing memories. Now enjoy one of the most photogenic castles I have ever seen. Of course, these rundowns of each day could never cover everything I did, but these were just my highlights. However, each day did present issues that you can't really be ready for until it presents itself, so I did think of a couple tips that I already have for if you study here in London.
1: Make sure you pack your scarf in your backpack rather than your suitcase. This presented a huge problem for me because when its 0-degrees outside and you want to keep your face warm after arriving, it's very tough to look in your tightly packed luggage for a scarf while on a bus. 2: Make sure you bring reusable shopping bags with you. Stores do have bags that you can buy, however they cost money and paying money for a plastic shopping bag every time you go shopping is really not worthwhile or good for the environment. 3: This is really the most important in my opinion. I have only been here about 7 days at the time of writing this post, but make sure you are ready for anything when you are out and about. The public transport can be a bit more difficult than you would expect as there are bus/train strikes, delays, and even just times where transport is either extremely busy or not running at all. Of course, there is always a way to get back, but sometimes you may have to stay calm if something does not go exactly right. Overall though, my experience is already one of the best experiences I could have ever hoped for, and I owe it all to the people back at home who love me and support me even when I choose to go to the farthest possible places away from home. |
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July 2023
While I attend the University of Hawaii at Manoa, I was born in Littleton Colorado and grew up in a rural area. When I moved out to Hawaii for school, I quickly found my groove in Shidler College of Business as a triple major studying Marketing, International Business, and Quantitative Economics, and I was later chosen to be one of the Shidler Global Leaders. This and several other scholarships, including the Johnson Scholarship, gave me the amazing opportunity to go spend a semester abroad in the United Kingdom.
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