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