Jett's Study Abroad Experience
Spring 2023
Spring 2023
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!
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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! |
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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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