Here we are again, and what a time it’s been since I last wrote!

When we last met, I had just effectively evacuated from Greece, cutting my semester short and beginning the long, dark winter that was coronavirus. It’s been a sad 17 months since then, but I am extremely excited to announce that barring any last-minute downturns, I will be back at the airport soon to start out on yet another study abroad experience, this time in… Tuscany!!

I am so lucky to go to a university that goes out of its way to make study abroad accessible and affordable, and even more lucky to have a university that changed its policies to make study abroad possible for seniors as well! Normally, Arcadia likes to have seniors on campus to write their capstone thesis paper, but as the past two thesis seasons have shown, that can all be done online and from any place in the world. That means that I will be writing two thesis papers for both of my majors while in Italy, but if that’s the price to pay to study abroad again, then bring it on.

I will be studying in Perugia, Italy, smack dab in the middle of Italy. This town is the capital of the state of Umbria and is a small university town in a rural region. I will be participating on a program called Food and Sustainability Studies, and I am really excited to explore an academic field that’s a bit more removed from the bureaucratic political stuff that I thought I wanted to do as a career.

The pandemic really gave me some time to think about what I really want to go into, and while I am still committed to being an active and informed voter, I’m not sure that I want to go into legislative work or anything in DC. My internship in Greece, where I was an English teacher for refugees, gave me a lot of ideas for jobs I could get in the humanitarian/ aid field, and I would love to be able to incorporate food into that and make a career.

My best friend is a German major and spending the year in Munich, so I will be accompanying her to Germany next week, spending some time there, and then traveling on to Perugia from Germany.

I hope you are all doing well, fully vaccinated and ready to begin living again. Have a wonderful week and I’ll see you in Europe!

       It’s no secret that the last few months have brought about a new reality for every single person on Earth. It’s upended normal life for everybody and unfortunately ended my time in Greece two months early. While I miss Athens, Greece, and my internship with all of my heart, I am so thankful to have had the time there that I did, to have taken advantage of the opportunities that were presented to me, and to have met some of the best people I have ever met in my life. I learned and experienced so much in my time there and although I wish we had been able to spend the whole semester there, I would not have given it up for the world. 

Once we returned from our Clean Monday break on March 3rd, it was clear that things had taken a turn for the worse in our little corner of Europe. While we were gone, our counterparts studying in Italy had been told that they had to be out of the country by March 6th, and Greece had seen its first two coronavirus cases. Not that we took anything for granted before, but now our semester was being seriously threatened and we were soaking up every second and every experience even more than before. Unfortunately, that did not change the fact that we were awoken on March 12 with the news that our program was being suspended, the American borders were being effectively closed to European travelers, and that we needed to get out as soon as possible.

Although this was an absolute nightmare, the last two weeks of our semester could not have been spent better. The people on my program became even closer than before, we crammed a lot into the last few days we had together, and made the most of the situation.

The highlights of our last weeks together included a class trip to the First Cemetery of Athens, joining a protest to protect migrant rights at the Greek-Turkish border, a class trip to Nafplio, and a whirlwind last two days.

The First Cemetery of Athens was the first official cemetery in the city after the founding of the modern Greek state in 1821. It was built in 1837 and houses important figures in modern Greek history. My photography class took a trip there to take pictures in black and white and they came out very moody and dramatic which was exactly what we were going for. The many stray cats roaming about Athens also made an appearance.

The cemetery is still very much in use and there was actually a funeral going on while we were there, which was interesting to see as I have never seen an Orthodox funeral before. It did definitely make me feel obtrusive, but c’est la vie?

Sometime in the next couple of days I got to experience another thing near and dear to Greek culture, and that was a protest. Greeks, especially in Athens, are very politically active and there is a large antifa and anarchist population there. There are constantly protests going on in the middle of the city that disrupt the (already bad) public transportation, but this was the first time that I had ever joined one.

First, some background: Turkey and Greece do not have great relations already and the refugee crisis has only exacerbated these tensions. In 2016, the European Union (of which Greece is a member) made a deal with Turkey that said that the EU would give Turkey up to $6.7B if Turkey kept the migrants out of the EU. However, Turkey said that the EU did not hold up their end of the bargain and in February, facing an economic decline, began to use the migrants as human pawns to put pressure on the EU to pay Turkey. On February 29th, Turkey opened their border with Greece, which resulted in a bloody standoff between migrants and Greek military forces. The human rights violations being committed here by both Greece and Turkey were the focal point of protests across Greece around this time. I was getting home from my internship and the public transportation basically dropped me in the middle of the city where the protests were. This issue is very important to me especially because of my internship and the connections I made there, so I joined. It was completely peaceful and very moving.

The next day, one of my classes took a class trip to the town of Nafplio, which was the first capital of Greece after its independence. The class was called The Political Economy of Terrorism and was about terrorism and extremism in the Middle East. The trip centered around a simulation in which we all played a role in fake peace negotiations.

We first ate lunch by the water and walked around the gorgeous town. I had a Greek salad and a (very full, not my fault) glass of rose to begin our weekend.

After exploring, we began the simulation. I played the vice president of a dictatorship and had a lot of fun. Other people had less fun, haha. My friend Andrew was the dictator and my friend Kathleen was our security advisor.

The next day, we were able to go to the top of the mountain outside of Nafplio and see the fortress at the top that was built when Greece was under Ottoman rule.

Then, we got to go swimming in the clearest water I’ve ever seen. Was it freezing? Yes. But it was worth it. I feel so lucky that we were able to go on this trip. We had trips for other classes planned to Thessaloniki and the island of Syros which we were not able to go on, but this trip was one of the only other times I was able to get out of Athens and see another part of Greece and I am so thankful that e got to squeeze this in before things really turned south.

The next week was chaotic to say the least. Monday and Tuesday we had class, and Tuesday afternoon the Greek government announced it would be closing schools for two weeks to try to stop corona before it got worse. Haha! That meant that Wednesday, we had no class. A couple of my friends and I decided to go to the National Museum of Contemporary Art, which was about as weird as it sounds.

We were able to go onto the roof, where we saw a storm blowing in and (half) jokingly said it was like the threat of coronavirus looming over us.

At that point, we were nervously awaiting Trump’s Oval Office address that would be broadcasted around 3 am our time. At 5 am the next day, we got a text saying that our program was being suspended and we needed to book a flight, now. Despite the ensuing chaos, we wanted to make the most of our last day. A group of us went to go watch the sunrise. Then, our program leader invited us to all have a picnic on top of one of the big hills in Athens, Φιλοπαππου, or Philopappou. While incredibly bittersweet, it was so good to be able to look out over Athens one last time while all being together.

Afterwards, a group of us went out to Γλυθαδα (Glyfada) beach.

I only got a little sunburned. We just hung out, listened to a lot of Fleetwood Mac, and enjoyed each other’s company.

Finally, our program leader invited us to come over to her apartment and cook dinner to use up leftover food. We spent the whole night telling stories about our time, thinking about all the things we would miss, and trying to soak up our last minutes with each other. We saw a beautiful sunset over the hills of Athens and tried to accept that that was the last one we would ever see, for a long time anyway.

And then it was over. Just six weeks in, when we were finally starting to feel comfortable getting around Athens, speaking Greek, and living like a Greek, and we were already being torn away from Greece and from each other. However said it was, however, I would not have wanted to go any other semester. I had the best six weeks of my life and I would not have given them up for anything. Our group still has a big group chat that we keep in touch with and we are hoping that we can get together again sometime soon, maybe even in Greece. Crazier things have happened!

Thank you all for reading this and for your interest. If anyone ever has the chance to go to Greece, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Even just the food is a reason in itself to go. Beautiful scenery, beautiful people, and a truly beautiful life there. Thank you, and I hope to be writing on here again soon. Stay safe and healthy.

Hello everybody!

As I have mentioned before, Greece is a very religious country. This means that I get multiple breaks due to religious holidays that I would not have had off for in the United States or somewhere where the Greek Orthodox Church does not have as much influence. Monday, March 2 was a day called Clean Monday in the Orthodox Church and is kind of like Mardi Gras, where people are trying to get rid of all their meat and stuff before Lent starts. This gave us a six-day break, which means it’s ~travel time!!~

Two of my roommates, one of our friends, and I decided that we wanted to hit more Eastern European cities and countries since we are over on this side of the continent. This ended up being an especially good idea since other popular Western European countries like Italy and France ended up being a bit too dangerous coronavirus-wise. We also wanted to be able to see as many cities and countries as we could, so we decided on a three-city tour: 1) Budapest, Hungary, 2) Prague, Czech Republic, and 3) Bratislava, Slovakia. We’ve all heard great things about the first two, and we were debating whether to go to Bratislava or Vienna for the last leg of the trip. We decided on Bratislava first because we thought that that was the one we were least likely to go to ever again, and that decision was then fully validated when flights from Bratislava were exponentially cheaper than flying out of Vienna. Who would have thought?

Funny enough, we ended up being trendsetters in the decision to go to these cities, as approximately a third of our program also ended up going to Budapest and Prague during the break. Great minds think alike 🙂

BUDAPEST

Our first stop was Budapest, Hungary. We had all heard how beautiful Budapest was, but none of us knew exactly what to expect from the city. When we got there, we found a vibrant, if not freezing, city that had clear influences from both western and eastern Europe with a visible impact having been made from the era of Communism. By this I mean there was very diverse architecture that was a mixture of concrete block-looking buildings that were very Soviet next to buildings with intricate, ornate façades that were very Bohemian and clearly dating from before the USSR. There were churches and cathedrals everywhere, some looking like the ones I saw in southern Germany while some others looked even a little Scandinavian- which is particularly interesting when you realize that the closest linguistic relative to Hungarian is Finnish. Perhaps the most impressive building (in my opinion) in all of Budapest was the Hungarian Parliament building sitting right on the Danube River. It had incredible Gothic architecture with every inch of surface being covered in intricate, painstaking detail. Overall, the architecture gave me an insight into the history of the country and gave me a feel of a city and country that might be struggling with conflicting identities and a fight to hold on to tradition- also interesting because of their current government, led by right-wing populist Viktor Orbán and heading in the general right-wing direction that many countries are during the current wave of populism and conservatism.

The food was delicious and fairly similar to other central European countries- that is, a lot of meat, potatoes, and beer.

The first picture is chicken Paprikash and the second picture is the exorbitant amount of food we ordered by accident (the portions were much bigger than expected), which includes goulash, Wienerschnitzel, and, of course, beer.  Funny story, we were exploring Buda Castle and it was very cold and windy and we were starving so we found a little place called Baltazar that was close and affordable so we stopped in. We all ended up randomly ordering the exact same thing, spinach soup with french fries and aioli, and it was absolutely fantastic. Only cost about 6 Euros. Then we left and we looked at the outside of the restaurant and it turns out it had a Michelin star!! We never would have known by the prices, but the food was very very good.

The sights in Budapest were beyond beautiful. Buda Castle, which I mentioned before, was truly a feat in architecture and was actually a whole little town. No words can do the justice that pictures do, and even the pictures do not do it justice. But I’ll let them try:

The views of Budapest from the castle were also immaculate:

It was incredibly windy and cold at the top but nothing could stop us! While at the top, I also got to see the changing of the guard. Notice the decidedly Soviet uniforms: In the little town surrounding Buda Castle, there was an absolutely gorgeous cathedral that was so pretty it couldn’t be real:

like… those tiles!!

Right next to this cathedral was something called the Fisherman’s Bastion. I remember reading fairy tales when I was little and always wanting to visit the buildings and the castles that were in them. Well, folks, I found it!

Those are two of my friends that went on the trip with me, Madi (L) and Lana. Sydney, the fourth, is behind the camera.

Just some of the details from the castle itself:

Of course, we had to go to the Hungarian baths while we were there. One of my friends who was studying in Ireland went and her Instagram caption of the pictures she took there was “mmm…human soup!” which was accurate.

It was PACKED with students about our age, mostly French or British. In a stunning coincidence, I also saw one of my friends from Arcadia in Glenside there!! Hi Jill!!

The natural beauty of Budapest was also magnificent. This was a little pond we stumbled on while en (LONG) route to the baths:

And finally, anyone who knows me knows I love a good market hall. Pike Place, Reading Terminal, Borough Market, I’m there. The Grand Market Hall, then, was the perfect place for me. I wish I had been a bit hungrier so I could have had some of the delicious food being sold there, but I was able to get the souvenirs I needed before we left.

After two short days, we had to leave Budapest to go to Prague. What a hard life. Budapest certainly set the bar high and Prague had big shoes to fill…which it had no trouble doing at all.

PRAGUE

After a very short flight, we arrived in the capital of the Czech Republic. By accident,we ended up going on an Eastern European capitals tour, Athens included.

I’ll start with the architecture of Prague. It was very similar to Budapest’s, but in the Old City there was almost no visual trace of the Soviet Union. Once you got to the outskirts or even just outside of the Old City, it was again a mixture of buildings, but in the Old City it was like you were transported back in time to, again, fairy tale-era. My non-expert opinion is that it was very Baroque, but look for yourself:

A couple of these are Sydney’s pictures. You can tell because some of them are so much better than the others. Just gotta give credit where credit is due! So much of the architecture is tied in with the sights, so I’ll leave the rest of it to that section.

The food was also very similar to the food in Budapest: meat, potatoes, and beer. Yummy 🙂

The first picture is from a restaurant we went to right after stepping off the plane. It was fairly touristy but for a reason! It was basically a buffet of all sorts of different Czech food. I had a potato dumpling filled with ham with mushroom gravy and a Czech pilsner. Carbs who? The second picture was from dinner that night, which we had at a really cool restaurant that looked straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean. I had a sausage with vegetables and, of course, beer. This time around it was a radler. The third picture was breakfast the next morning, eggs benedict (which I LOVE). The fourth picture was an open air pop-up market where we ate on the steps of the philharmonic orchestra concert hall. There was a place selling hot dogs that were so good one of the vegetarians broke rank and had one (and enjoyed it too!). Finally, the last picture was a candy store that we found that was mining- themed. It was very cartoony but they had such a selection I couldn’t help myself and bought too much. The exchange rate of the Czech koruna to euro was a little crazy ($1=24 kr) so I really had very little of an idea of how much I was spending at any given time. Yikes!

And now to the sights of Prague. From the time we stepped off the plane to the time we left, we did not stop saying how gorgeous the city was. Pretty soon, we started questioning if it was real at all, because we all felt very Truman Show-y, like everything was set up just for us and that nothing was real. The Old City was a prime example of that.

These pictures don’t come close to what it really looked like but just imagine you’re in the opening scene of Beauty and the Beast. That’s it.

We went to the Klementinum Baroque Library that holds the old astronomical tower where people like Johannes Kepler worked and observed. It also holds one of the most beautiful libraries in the world. We were not allowed to take pictures, but give it a google. Seriously. Finally, we were able to climb to the very top and get an amazing view of Prague.

We also got up very early to get to all these places before the tourist herd hit, and that paid off nowhere more than Charles Bridge. It crosses the Vltava River that runs straight through Prague and dates from the 14th century. No big deal.

Finally, a picture of Sydney! There she is, in between me and Lana in the second picture. She took that first picture of me that I will be using as my profile picture in everything from now on.

As if anything could be more beautiful that what we had gone to this far! Prague Castle proved to top it all. Just like in Budapest,  it also had a cathedral and a whole little town around it.

The cathedral, St. Vitus, was easily the most impressive building I’ve ever seen, and we weren’t even allowed to go in. It was huge and you couldn’t get the whole thing in one frame, and there was just so much detail on it that you could stare at it for hours and not notice it all. Here’s more of the surrounding town, which was gorgeous but pales in comparison to the cathedral:

The walk up to the castle gave us an amazing view of Prague as well:

And here’s some really weird modern art which is listed as a sight to see in Prague but just ended up scaring me:

I don’t know what it means.

We took a walk across the bridge and explored the other side of the river, which was a bit less touristy but just as beautiful. Over there are such things as the Franz Kafka museum, where they did not let me go to the bathroom. The walk back to the other side, made for some very good pictures:

One of my proudest moments was introducing Lana to the magic that is mulled wine. Here we are, wandering around a tourist market holding the wine (and my big bag of candy): This picture also amazes me because it really shows just how much melanin I do not have. I should be used to it by now but sometimes it just really hits you. Here’s a cute picture of us all at Prague Castle to close off the trip:

Prague was wonderful. We logged about 30,000 steps on our full day there and really hit everything that we should have seen, and certainly earned our carb overload that you just cannot avoid in Eastern Europe. I would very highly recommend the city to anyone and everyone who reads this, just as long as you take me back with you!

Finally, we were on the last leg of our trip, which was Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. We took a train there from Prague, which ended up being a really nice ride and we got to see much more of the countryside that we would have been able to see from a plane, and we saved a lot of money, too! Always a plus.

BRATISLAVA

Bratislava was one of those places where if you don’t go now, you’ll never go. So we decided to go. I’m glad we went, but it was certainly very weird and at times a little creepy. I enjoyed our time there, though, and I had a lot of fun.

The architecture was very Soviet, and I don’t really have a lot to say past that.

There’s a lot of different things to talk about in these pictures. The first was the front of a building I thought was pretty. The second is very Soviet. We did not have enough time in Bratislava to really learn about the history, but I though it was interesting that they kept something like that up even though they fought for their freedom from the USSR. The third was the town square that had approximately one other person apart from us in it. The whole city was very empty except for us, sex workers, and their clients. I would be really curious to see what the “Thai massage parlor” per capita proportion is. It would definitely be the highest of any place I’ve ever been. The fourth picture was…very Bratislava. I don’t know anything about it, but it was pretty much what it looked like: that is, a weird demon sitting like a frog swinging off a roof. So strange. The fifth picture was by a church, and looked very much like Budapest and Prague! The sixth and seventh also reflect that. The eighth was a picture I took of the old city gate, St. Michael’s Gate, and edited for my photography class. Finally, the last picture is of Blumental Church.

The food in Bratislava was, as you might guess, meat and potatoes again. I am not complaining, though!! Our first lunch there ended up being huge. Again, we thought everything would be smaller. We had pierogies, noodles, Wienerschnitzel, beer, mashed potatoes, and not pictured because I had already eaten it, garlic soup. I love garlic!!

Here’s a terrible picture of a place that we did not go to for our own safety:

Commie Cola:

and elderflower Fanta I found at the airport:

The sights of Bratislava were limited. Here were the couple there were:

If you look close enough at the first picture, you might be able to see the UFO over the highway in the distance. This is kind of like the Space Needle and you can go to the top, have a snack, and be strapped on and walk on the top. We did not do this. The last pictures are of St. Martin’s Cathedral. We heard there were catacombs that we could go to, so we tried going, but they are only open one week in November each year, we are assuming for All Saints’. Oh well. It was beautiful on the inside!

I don’t think this counts as a sight but it was weird and I want to show you: The executioner!

That was pretty much Bratislava. I would definitely go again but not alone and maybe closer to whenever peak tourist season is. We were honestly the only people there and it was really weird. Soviet vibes?

Overall, the break was absolutely wonderful and I am so glad we got to go. As you can probably imagine, I am not writing this from beautiful, lovely, warm Athens. I am instead writing this from my bedroom back in the United States, after our program was cancelled due to coronavirus. I’ll write more about this in another post, but for now I’ll just say that I am so thankful for the time I had in Greece and that we were able to take this trip before all hell broke loose. It’s definitely a reminder to carpe every diem that you have! I miss Europe a lot, but I know I’ll be back as soon as this is all over. Thank you for reading and stay healthy!!

Καλμσπερα! Good afternoon from Athens! Athens and I are nearing our three week anniversary, even though it feels like I’ve been here a lifetime. I have already done and learned so much, it’s hard to believe that I’ve been here less than a month. I am settling in well, I know how to get around the city, I can order and buy food in Greek, and I am making friends with the people on my program. I am loving life and Greece is treating me well!

I just finished my first week of classes and I am definitely enjoying them. As I mentioned before, most of the classes I am taking are teaching me a lot about Greece and Greek history and helping me to understand what is going on around me and put everything in context. All my classes have an excursion with them, and this past Friday (2/14) I went with one of my classes to a working-class suburb of Athens called Peristeri. We learned about a soap factory that was taken over by its workers and now runs as a co-op, learned about Turkish migration into Greece, and got to see another part of Athens that is much different from our own. I am taking a photography class, so if any of my pictures seem heavily edited, that is why.

My photography class usually goes out once a week to a different area of the city and takes pictures, so here are a couple more from those mini-excursions:

My internship is going well, I am teaching intermediate English three times a week to refugees and migrants. I have no background in teaching anything and was honestly really scared about getting thrown into doing this, but it has not been as bad or scary as I had expected. I am learning at the same pace as my students and I know generally what I need to teach them, and I’m doing the best I can which is all I can do at this point. They are very patient with me which is EXTREMELY helpful. I have always had a lot of respect for teachers, but actually doing really makes me wonder how they are always so put together up there. Lesson planning is hard work!!

Other highlights of the last two weeks included visiting the National Museum of Archaeology, hosting a Galentine’s party in our apartment, and drinking what may be the best coffee of my life. It’s starting to have an impact on my wallet, though.

National Museum of Archaeology:

Galentine’s is a holiday made famous by the show Parks and Rec. It’s February 13th and meant to celebrate your friends. It’s one of my favorite holidays 🙂

Fun fact: I ordered that cake completely in Greek! It wasn’t perfect but I got my point across!

And, of course, the food and wine section:

Here we have a fabulous, if not expensive, cappuccino, a scrambled egg sandwich that was absolutely amazing, and a slice of a lemon that someone picked off a tree, peeled, and was handing out. It was actually really good and much sweeter than I would have expected. I ate two. My internship and class schedule keeps me on my toes, so I usually eat an orange (Πορτοκαλι) for breakfast and spanokopita (Σπανοκοπιτα) for lunch, because it’s easy and cheap. I am certainly taking advantage of the weekly market, where I can buy a good amount of fruits and vegetables for the next week at a very low price. Gotta keep it under budget!

I’ll leave you with a picture from my daily commute home, with the Parthenon and the Temple of Zeus in the background. Truly unbelievable, if you think about it. Have a wonderful week 🙂

Hello! Welcome back! I am writing to you from Aθηνα, Ελλαδα, or Athens, Greece! I arrived in this beautiful city in the afternoon on January 27th, and so far it has been nothing but wonderful. Although I arrived here on a cold, rainy January Monday, the weather has changed to be exactly what guide books about Greece promise: sunny, beautiful, and because it’s January, highs around 60-65°F. It feels like a much-earned vacation and I am having a great beginning to what is sure to be a fantastic semester full of new experiences, learning curves, and hopefully just a couple of sunburns!

This semester I am studying abroad in Athens on the Athens Internship Program through Arcadia University. My internship is with an NGO (non-governmental organization) called Za’atar. I will be working with the organization with refugees, most likely teaching them English. As I am an international studies and political science double major, international humanitarian work is one possible career choice of mine. Getting to try out a possible career before graduation and helping people along the way is a great opportunity and I am so lucky to be able to do this. I will also be taking four classes: The Political Economy of Terrorism, Modern Greek 101, Conflicting Identities and Modern Greek History, and Picturing Athens (a photography class). These classes not only will transfer back home and count towards my major, but will also be really helpful to understanding Greek culture and being able to interact with the people around me because I will understand the social and historical context that is affecting contemporary Greece and Greek culture.

Orientation week is always exhausting. Doing it while being jet lagged made it even more so, but I would not have traded it for anything. I was able to become friends with all 30 people on my program and see the sights in Athens, all while eating the best food in the world. The highlights for me were climbing Λυκαβηττου, or Mt. Lykavittos, exploring the ruins of Emperor Hadrian’s library, shopping at our weekly farmers’ market, seeing an Orthodox cathedral, spending time out in the sun (with a lot of sunscreen on, of course), seeing the national library, and climbing up to the Acropolis with a stop at the Temple of Dionysus. All of the food I have had here has been absolutely out of this world. My icebreaker fun fact about myself this week has been that my favorite food is garlic, and Greece is certainly indulging me in that aspect.

My school in Athens is creatively called the Arcadia Greece center and is located in the neighborhood of Παγνατι, or Pagrati, in Athens. It is a three-story building with a rooftop that looks out over the city and Πλατια Βαρναβα, Varnava Square, right below. On our first full day in Athens, our program leader took us to the rooftop, pointed at a mountain in the distance, and said meet you at the top in 45 minutes. She collected our phones so we had to use paper maps (the horror!) and set us off. It was a steep hike but we made it and the view at the top was SO worth it. The mountain is hidden behind that tree, unfortunately.

The next day we went into downtown Athens. We were let go to explore as we wanted and a group of us wanted to go to a flea market. On the way, we came across some ruins, as one might do while in Greece, so we stopped and paid the low, low price of €3 to go in and see them up close.

Seeing these ruins from thousands of years ago next to churches from hundreds of years ago and modern shops and restaurants is just so different than what I am used to in the United States. The history here goes back unbelievably far and it’s so crazy to think about who has walked down the same streets I am walking on now, who touched that same rock, or what these ruins and buildings have lived through. If walls could talk!

The farmers’ market was also a huge highlight. I love both open air markets and cheap food and this place had it all. We got enough fruit and vegetables to last us a week for under €15! That market only happens once a week but I know that every Friday, all of us Arcadia students are going to descend upon it like vultures to get everything we can for as cheap as we can. The market is also a good place to practice my Greek! I have been learning on Duolingo for a while now but an app can only go so far. I came here knowing how to say good morning, good afternoon, and good night, a couple completely useless sentences (“The salad has no carrots”) and having a fair grasp on the alphabet. At the market, I was able to tell a man that I wanted 5 potatoes (“θελω πεντε παταται”) and that I didn’t want a plastic bag because I have one of my own (“Δεν θελω αυτο, εχει ενα!”). Hopefully next week I’ll know how to say I only want a half kilo of something so that I don’t end up with an exorbitant amount of olives.

The cathedral of Athens, also called the Duomo, is absolutely stunning. Church art and architecture usually is, but the Orthodox church being so much different than I’m used to makes it even more intriguing. On one day that we went into downtown Athens, we were able to go inside of it as a group. Greece is a heavily religious country and that is visible in many aspects of life. When people walk by a church, they cross themselves. When I’m on a bus and it drives by a church, many people on the bus cross themselves. Even motorcycle drivers zooming past a church will take their life in their hands to take a hand off the handles and cross themselves. I’ll often see people with prayer beads praying as they sit drinking their coffee, riding the bus, or having lunch with their family. Every bus I’ve been on has had icons on it above the driver. Even before I left, at Newark airport, there was an Orthodox priest on my flight and people were going up to him and getting blessed before flying. The Orthodox church has had a heavy influence on the history of Greece and continues to be a major part of everyday life here. Here are a couple pictures of the church:

However, women aren’t allowed past a certain point in the cathedral so that makes it a little less beautiful to me 🙂

One of the orientation days was spent at Σταυος Νιαρχος (Stavros Niarchos) Foundation Cultural Center, which houses both the national library and the national opera house. We had some free time, so some friends and I went out to the marina and laid in the sun for a while. It was absolutely beautiful. Not to make you jealous, but here are some pictures:

Good thing I packed my SPF 100+ sunscreen. Still got burned though. Inevitable at this point. The library was gorgeous and I’ll definitely be back to study!

The last three pictures are of the opera house. They are putting on some sort of Communist show, judging by the set they were building when we were walking through.

Finally, the Acropolis is something you just can’t miss while in Athens. All national museums are free for everyone on the first Sunday of the month, so nearly all of us on my program took advantage of that and hiked up the big, steep hill to the Parthenon. I really, truly do not have the words to describe it and the pictures do not even come close to doing it justice. When people first walk in, you first see the Temple of Dionysus. This is  a big amphitheater that ancient Greeks used to perform theatre in.

Then, further up the hill, there was an intact amphitheatre.

This was really a sight to behold. I may have teared up for no particular reason.

Finally, we climbed up to the top of the hill. The pictures may or may not speak for themselves. If you ever have the chance, being able to spend time where so many famous politicians, poets, writers, and thinkers walked is really…an experience. I’m not sure how to describe it past that.

Can’t beat those blue skies.

Since I mentioned food (and because I LOVE Greek food), I will add in a couple pictures of some of the best things I’ve eaten in the past week. It’s a high bar and every meal sets it a bit higher!

I’ll give a short explanation for everything.

1. I didn’t catch the name at the restuarant, but Wikipedia is calling this “Βανιλια υποβρυχιο,” or vanilla submarine. It was a kind of sweetish, thick white paste that was the consistency of cold toothpaste. It was kept in a glass of ice cold water to freeze it and keep it thick. It sounds really weird and honestly, it was, but I added it here because I had never seen, tasted, or heard of this before and thought it was very interesting.
2. A kalamata olive pastry from a bakery down the street from my school! Doesn’t need much more information than that.
3. a souvlaki sandwich! Very similar to gyros. Also, they come with french fries wrapped in! While I was in Germany, I got one with fries in it and thought it was so American and weird and inaccurate. I stand corrected.
4. My friends and I had a family dinner! My roommate bought squid and pineapple at the market and we made a big dinner with bread, tzatziki, pasta, squid and pineapple, and perhaps a spot of wine. It was great.
5. My very Mediterranean breakfast of a pastry, orange, and coffee. I could get used to this.
6. Saragli! Very similar to baklava and equally (too) sweet. It has pistachios on top and nuts in the middle. Delicious in small quantities.
7. When in Greece, you might as well take advantage of the delicious seafood available! My friends and I found a fantastic small restaurant close to the Acropolis (but not in the touristy area). It was so Greek that they actually ignored us when we asked for the check, which led us to sit there for another 45 mins. Greek time!
8. My lunch today, a falafel sandwich from a Syrian restaurant across the street from my school.
9. COFFEE! Every coffee I have had while here has been oh-so-delicious. Coffee is a big part of Greek culture (Thankfully!). During orientation, we had a “Drink like a Greek” challenge, where we were put into groups and sent to different cafes in our area. When there, we were supposed to find another person or group that were there and out-stay them, since Greeks are notorious for taking 3 hour coffee breaks. In the US, I am very much a go-go-go person, but actually taking a minute to breathe, sit, reflect, and visit with my friends is actually pretty relaxing. Who knew?

That’s been my life for the past week. I already know that I will miss this city so much when I leave, but I don’t want to think about that yet! This week is my first week of classes and my internship. Back to real life, but every day when I take the bus to my internship and see the Parthenon in the distance, it doesn’t feel real. It’s hard to wrap my brain about all the history in this city and this part of the world. Until I am able to, I’ll keep exploring and discovering new parts of Athens and Greece. Thank you for reading! Καλινιχτα!

I just got back from what was one of the best weeks of my life. I learned so much, had a ton of new experiences, and got to eat some of the best food on the planet for a week straight. All heavily subsidized by Arcadia, amen!! Here’s a run-down of my trip:

We got in late Saturday (March 9) night, got checked into the hotel, and went straight to bed. Addis Ababa is 8 hours ahead of Philadelphia, so it felt like the middle of the afternoon to us, but after our 17 hour flight, we were exhausted.

Sunday was our first full day in the city. We had breakfast at the hotel, where they had a small buffet of hard boiled eggs, firfir (strips of injera bread mixed with a tomato sauce), bread, fruit, and coffee.

As expected, the coffee was fantastic. I could drink it black, and usually you couldn’t pay me anything downwards of $1mil to do that. After breakfast, we headed out on the bus to visit Emperor Menelik II’s palace on Mount Entoto. You may remember him from my last post-he led Ethiopians to victory over the Italians in the Battle of Adwa in 1896, preventing them from every being fully colonized. He and his wife, Empress Taitu, lived in this palace.

Here are two of my friends, Jordan and Amaya. They were in London with me in the fall and I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to travel with them again to Ethiopia. Our adorable tour guide offered to take a picture of us and I thought they turned out well 🙂

Ethiopia is a fairly religious country and the main religion is Ethiopian Orthodoxy. We are currently in the month of Lent, and this was on a Sunday, which means there were a ton of people at the church next door. It was a beautiful church, brightly painted and designed in a typical fashion.

After visiting the palace and church, we headed down the hill and were able to get out and take in the stunning view of Addis.

On the way down, we stopped at a little village where we got to take some more pictures. Some little boys from the village led us through a small forest to take us to a cave that used to be a church in the 13th century.

We then went to the Holy Trinity Cathedral, near the Ethiopian Parliament building.

The paintings in the church interested me because they were a mixture of secular and non-secular paintings. The picture in the middle of the left-hand side depicts Emperor Haile Selassie I addressing the League of Nations in an attempt to get aid to defend Ethiopia from fascist Italian aggression in 1936. Fun fact: he was turned down because the major powers were wary of ticking Italy off right before WWII, because they needed Italy’s help in the fight against Hitler. That worked out well. The Italians invaded Ethiopia and stayed until 1941, when they had to pull out to focus on WWII.

After seeing the church, we headed down to the Empress Taitu Hotel for lunch. This was the first hotel in Addis Ababa and is very famous.

The lunch was a fantastic, traditionally Ethiopian fasting lunch. As I mentioned before, Ethiopia is a very religious country, and many people in the Orthodox church fast during Lent. For them, fasting is eating vegan food. In the US, people often think of vegan food as being gray, all made out of kale, or just kind of nasty in general. I can confidently say that if this food was readily available in the States, I would be able to go vegan. It was amazing and I miss it already. Also, Ethiopians love Coca-Cola. Ads for Coke were everywhere and these bottles were available everywhere we went. After lunch, we took a walking tour of the Piassa neighborhood of Addis. It was a very old and poor area, and really showed us what life was like for most citizens of the city. We got to see where our professor’s husband grew up and got to feel like a racial minority, which for most of us was a new experience. Many people stopped and stared at this group of largely white college kids walking down the street, some people took pictures of us, and some guy on a motorcycle took of his shirt, waved it around in the air, and yelled “WHITE FOOOOLLLLLKKKSSS!!!!!” as he drove by. Personally, I thought that was funny. Many people were simply happy to see tourists in their city and welcomed us to Addis. It was a great experience and one that I will remember for a long time. I didn’t get to take a ton of pictures, but here are a couple that I did get:

The peppers on the tarp are being dried to make a powdered spice called bevere, which is in many Ethiopian dishes.

The walk through Piassa was very difficult for all of us. We knew that we would see extreme poverty in Ethiopia and we knew that it would be uncomfortable and heartbreaking. However, knowing these things as a hypothetical is much different than seeing them right before your eyes. One of the most important things I realized during this week was how wealthy I really am, especially when speaking in a global sense. In the United States, I wouldn’t describe myself as wealthy. I wouldn’t describe myself as poor, either, but in the developed country in which we live, we don’t belong to the upper class. In Ethiopia, I felt extremely wealthy and extremely privileged. I’ve never felt that on such a large scale before and I will remember that feeling for the rest of my life. It made me only more sure that I want to spend the rest of my life helping these people and working to lessen the inequalities in our world today.

That night, we went to dinner at a (fairly touristy) restaurant called Habesha 2000. In the restaurant, they had a stage where musicians and dancers performed traditional music and dance from all over Ethiopia. It was really interesting, as I had no knowledge of the traditional music and dance from this part of the world.

The food was, again, fantastic. Spoiler: I did not have one bad meal during my week.

The next day, Monday March 11, was devoted largely to museums. We started off with a security briefing at the United States Embassy. While I’ve always wondered what an embassy is like and while I really enjoyed the opportunity to see what the building was like from the inside, we didn’t actually need the briefing, as our professor had already told us everything the man had to say (watch out for pickpockets, don’t go out by yourselves at night if you don’t have to, etc.) and the briefing he gave us was more for State Department employees than a school group. They took our phones away so no pictures. We then rode to the National Museum of Ethiopia, where the main attraction is Lucy, the first humanoid skeleton ever found. She was found in northern Ethiopia and is a point of pride for many Ethiopians. There were artifacts from the prehistoric era, from many emperors and empresses, and then there was a modern art exhibit displaying art surrounding the history and culture of Ethiopia done by contemporary Ethiopian artists.

We ate lunch at the Lucy Cafe, right next to the restaurant. Guess what I ordered?

It was a really nice lunch and I got to talk and bond with many of my classmates. Also, I randomly ripped off this piece of injera and it looks just like the outline of Ukraine. I don’t know how I noticed that, but it’s true.

After lunch, we walked about a mile to Addis Ababa University. Along the way, many people stared and said hi to us. One man even walked by me with a huge smile on his face, high-fived me, and called me “sister.” It was cute. At the university, we (randomly) met an American man who was part of the “repatriation” program that Haile Selassie had started. The aim of the program was to “repatriate” people in the African diaspora, that is, people of African heritage living outside of Africa, back to an African country-namely, Ethiopia. He was from the United States, had played on the 49ers and Vikings, and was now living in Ethiopia and had started an NBA for the country, where there was previously just local basketball leagues. It was really interesting to hear from a person who had taken part in a program we had heard vaguely about and he was really excited to see a group of American students coming to Ethiopia to learn about the country. The museum inside the university was interesting, but what really intrigued me was an exhibit showing what rape victims were wearing when they were raped. These kinds of installations are becoming popular (“popular”) worldwide, but I’ve never seen one in real life. It was extremely heavy and was the focal point for me and many other girls on the trip in the museum. One of the victims was just seven years old when she was raped by her own father. Hearing about what these women and girls have faced and knowing that this is a global problem was heartbreaking.

Moving on, the next day we first visited the Red Terror Martyrs Museum. I didn’t know this before taking the class, but Ethiopia was ruled by a Communist government from 1974-1991. In 1974, Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed and replaced by what was called the “Derg.” The Derg carried out a political genocide called the “Red Terror” after coming to power against any and all real or perceived political prisoners. The number of victims varies, but estimates range from 10,000 up to 100,000. The museum showed graphic images of victims, artifacts from Haile Selassie, information about political resistance, and, most hauntingly, skulls and bones of victims found in a mass grave.

Next, we headed up the hill to Addis Ababa City University. There, we looked at the history of the city. There was a lot about Emperor Menelik II and Empress Taitu, the couple that founded Addis Ababa and moved the capital there. There was some really cool art and pictures of Addis over the years.

It was also in a beautiful spot overlooking Meskel Square, the center of Addis Ababa, which lent itself to some fantastic photos and a couple new profile pictures!

For lunch, we went to a rooftop restaurant. I got my usual Ethiopian food and discovered that my scalp had gotten sunburned. Ah, the joys of being white.

After lunch, we had a meeting set up with Ethiopian students who were interested in going to college in the United States. We had a presentation about Arcadia set up and then had a question and answer session with them. A ton of people all crammed into a tiny room to see us and it ended up being a really informative and fun time for all of us. We all got to exchange contact information at the end and we have been in contact with them since leaving.

We got to do a little souvenir shopping afterwards. I ran out of money very quickly and had to borrow from multiple different people in the group. Oops. Bad planning. I got some really good stuff to share with my family though, including coffee that my dad used to make a (delicious) stout beer. On the way home, we drove by the headquarters of the African Union.

That night, we went to dinner together. Three friends and I ordered dinner and shared our food all around.

The next day was our first time out of the city. We took a day trip to Ethiopia’s Grand Canyon, called Muger Gorge. The ride was long but fascinating. Addis Ababa is like any big city, with skyscrapers, lots of people, and modern technology. The suburbs, however, were anything but what we were used to. In fact, there were no suburbs. As soon as we left the city limits, it turned straight to rural. And I mean rural. With a few exceptions, it looked largely as it would have centuries ago. Some people were wearing modern clothes and there were shops with things like Pepsi and laptops, but it was clear that the majority of the people there were farmers and the entire community seemed to be living a very agrarian lifestyle. So much so that they were still using donkey-pulled wagons as their main mode of transportation. Here are some pictures from the drive:

Once we got to the Gorge, we ordered food and then took a hike around. We went to the Portuguese Bridge, where we took this picture:

And then we went a bit further and saw baboons! This is a picture that my friend Alura took since mine were terrible:

And here are some general pictures:

We ate traditional Ethiopian food for lunch and then headed to Debre Libanos Monastery, which is a very old church and monastery founded by Tekle Haymanot, a monk from the 13th century. We visited the museum but not the church, as there was a mass going on as we arrived. No pictures were allowed. This was also one of the strangest parts of the whole trip-because the area was extremely rural and brought little tourism outside of Ethiopia, the entire, entire village stopped what they were doing and just stared when a busload of white tourists piled out and walked across the village. We actually felt extremely disruptive, especially because we were interrupting an important mass during Lent. Seeing the monastery was very interesting but I could have done without the fishbowl-esque walk.

On the way back home, we ate some bananas we bought from a man on the side of the road. They were fantastic.

Another Debre Libanos-esque story: on the way back, we stopped on the side of the road to go to the bathroom. A group of us crossed the road and then couldn’t get back because a legitimately fifteen-minute long line of cars was driving past. Much like in Debre Libanos, everyone was very surprised to see white tourists on the side of the road and smiled and waved at us. We waved back…for fifteen minutes. We felt like the penguins in Madagascar-”smile and wave, boys, smile and wave.”

The next day was our last day in Ethiopia. We took another day trip outside of the city, this time to the town of Bishoftu and Lake Hora. If you remember the plane crash that happened on March 10, it was right near the town of Bishoftu. It was extremely tragic and provoked tangible grief that could be felt for the entire trip wherever we went in Ethiopia.

Lake Hora and Bishoftu is the site of a huge religious festival every year. The Oromo people, who live in the state surrounding Ethiopia, have their own religion and have this festival, called Irreecha (ir- “H” -ah”) every year. In 2016, political conflict between the Oromo, who have been historically oppressed, and the ruling political ethnic group, the Amhara, spilled over into this festival and caused a stampede and a massacre that killed many people. The official death toll is 50, but it is very likely that many more were killed and the government was trying to keep it under wraps so as to avoid more conflict. Another factor contributing to the different death tolls from different sources was the fact that the government shut down the internet for the days following the incident, again to avoid more protests. It was a horrible situation, one that was the culmination of many years of oppression and that symbolized the conflict between the two groups. Ethiopia just elected an Oromo prime minister, the first Oromo PM ever, and a lot of pressure is being put on him to solve the ethnic conflict that plagues the country today. Does any of this sound familiar? We learned about this festival and the events of the 2016 Irreecha back at Arcadia from someone who was actually there and then traveling to that spot was eerie but fascinating.

We first walked around Lake Hora. It was a beautiful day.

Then, we went to Koriftu Resort for lunch. My friend and roommate had gotten sick the day before and had to stay at the hotel and I was catching it. Another girl on the trip gave me anti-nausea meds (bless her heart) that solved the problem but unfortunately made me fall asleep after lunch instead of going canoeing on the lake like everyone else. I had a nice nap, though. After lunch, we rode back to the hotel and I again slept until we headed out to the Ghion Hotel, where we got to hear some live Ethiopian jazz. Ethiopian jazz is actually very famous and important to the culture of Ethiopia. It sounded a lot like American jazz, but…different. I recommend looking up some songs on Youtube and giving it a listen.

The next morning was an early one. We left the hotel at 5 in the morning and made the long trek back to Newark. The flight back seemed much shorter than the one there and I barely slept at all. I watched Bohemian Rhapsody twice and read a whole book, so I’d say it was a productive seventeen hours.

All in all, that week was one of the best in my whole life. As I hope is clear by now, I absolutely love traveling, learning, and EATING, so this week combined all my favorite things in one. If anyone ever has the chance to visit Ethiopia, I 110% recommend it. If you don’t have the opportunity, I 110% recommend finding an Ethiopian restaurant in your area and trying some of this food because it was addictively delicious and I’ve never tasted anything like it.

That’s it for me, thank you for reading this and I hope you all have a wonderful summer.

Here we go again!

At 9 pm tonight, I will be taking off to spend a week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on a short-term study abroad trip over spring break. Arcadia offers a program to all first-years called Preview, in which students take a two-credit course about a certain country in the spring semester and then travel to that country over spring break. There are all kinds of classes offered, and there are opportunities to travel to the UK, Ireland, Paris, Costa Rica, Vietnam, Oman, China, Sicily, and obviously Ethiopia, which is a new course this year. My professor has done extensive research in Ethiopia and Eritrea with refugees. She was a Fulbright scholar, recently lived there for a year on sabbatical, and is married to an Ethiopian-Eritrean man. I definitely trust her to take us around Addis Ababa and the surrounding area.

First things first: where is Ethiopia? Ethiopia is in the horn of Africa, neighboring Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan, and Kenya.

For many people, the word “Ethiopia” is automatically associated with pictures of famine, starving children, and Live Aid concerts headed by Freddie Mercury.  One of the focal points of our class has been to break down these stereotypes and learn literally anything else about the country and its rich history. What else do you know about Ethiopia right now besides the famine and now, its location? If you’re anything like me, you know embarrassingly little else, maybe that the coffee is good. One of the reasons I chose to go to Ethiopia was for this reason exactly. Not only do I not know if or when I’ll get to travel to Africa again, but out of all the countries offered, I knew the least about Ethiopia and could stand to learn the most.

I’ll try to give a short synopsis of the 3000+ year history of Ethiopia. At around 700 BC, the D’mt trading empire was in full swing, trading with empires to the west of D’mt and with the Arabian peninsula. Around 400 BC, the D’mt empire gave way to the Axum empire, which lasted until the 10th century AD. It was in this era that the national folklore began that King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba had a baby, Menelik I, to whom all Ethiopian emperors could trace their lineage. Christianity entered the Axum empire during the 4th century AD and Ethiopians became largely Coptic Christians, developing the religion of Ethiopian Orthodoxy. There are 11 giant stone churches in Ethiopia dating from this time period. No one knows how they were built and legend says that then-emperor Lalibela was helped by angels. Beginning around 600 AD, Islam entered Ethiopia and the religion grew to rival Christianity. Fast forward to 1800 AD, when the capital was moved to Addis Ababa. Emperor Melelik II, known as the “great modernizer,” built infrastructure, consolidated power, expanded territory, and helped to get Ethiopia up to the level that Western civilization was at that point. This same emperor was the one who fought off Italian invaders. Ethiopia is one of two countries in Africa that was never fully colonized, the other being Liberia. The Battle of Adwa is the battle in which the Ethiopians fought the Italians and one and it is a legendary battle in all of Africa. Haile Selassie, who you may have heard of, came to power in 1916 and brought Ethiopia onto the world stage. He was a member of the League of Nations and was a regular visitor to other heads of state. He was deposed in 1974 in favor of a Communist regime called the Derg, who ruled from 1974-1991. It was in this era that the great famine occurred, along with a genocide called the Red Terror. Since 1991, Ethiopia has become a federal democracy and has gone through major cycles of political unrest and crackdown. Abiy Ahmed, the current prime minister, is the first PM who comes from a different ethnic group than any other president or emperor before. He is from a group called the Oromo, everyone else has been from the Amhara. Ethnic conflict and divides are very visible in Ethiopia and is the biggest source of social strife in the country today. One thing I like about him-he recently made his cabinet 50% female. It’s fitting that I’m traveling today, March 8th, International Women’s Day.

In our class, we have been learning about the history and culture of Ethiopia and on our trip, we will be seeing major historical points in Addis, going on a couple hikes in the area surrounding the city, and meeting Ethiopian students interested in college in the US. Along with that, we will be eating lots of good food, drinking the world-famous coffee (and definitely taking a few beans home) and experiencing something completely different from anywhere I’ve ever been. I won’t be updating while I’m there, but keep an eye out for a post when I get back next week. Happy International Women’s Day, have a great week!

Anyone who knows me knows that I have been wanting to visit Ireland about as long as I wanted to go to Germany, so my entire life. This past weekend I finally got to go to Dublin! Zoë suggested that we go back when I was in Germany and of course, I jumped at the chance to see a place that I had been reading about since about 2003. It was a short trip, under 48 hours, but it was enough to give me a feel for the city of Dublin and definitely made me want to come back and explore more of both the country and the city of Baile Átha Cliath, as the city is known in Irish Gaelic (pronounced “boila ahta cliaht”).

Both of our flights into Dublin were delayed so we had a little less time on Friday night than was previously expected. Nevertheless, we tried to go to a pub (where I promptly got hit on by a man that looked exactly like my father at age 19…it was surreal and not at all enjoyable. We left that pub and went across the street to get kebabs for dinner. They were fantastic and unlike any kebab I’ve ever had, with some sort of mustard sauce that was surprisingly good.

The next day, our first and only full day in the city, started early and was jam-packed with sightseeing. We got up at 7, had breakfast at the hostel, and headed first to Trinity College.

A quick trip into St. Stephen’s Green, turned into a park and donated to the city by Arthur Guinness himself…

After a quick rain shower (this is Ireland, after all) and a rainbow to go with it, we decided to visit the statue of Molly Malone and Dublin Castle.

After the castle, we went to go see two of the big churches in Dublin, Christ Church and St. Patrick’s (of course). Both cost money to go in and see, so we just admired from the (dry) lobby. After a quick stop in a cafe for a scone and a coffee, we headed to the Guinness Storehouse. How could we not? We went through the whole museum, learned all about how Guinness is made, its history, Arthur Guinness, and the advertising and consistent popularity of the beer since it was first made in the mid-18th century. At the end, we learned how to pour “the perfect pint” of Guinness and drink it!

We got our certificates, our pints, and we were set. After spending a little more than I should have in the Guinness gift shop, we went to a pub for dinner. We split Irish Stew and a hamburger between us.

It was a long walk home but we made it. I felt very safe walking around Dublin, which surprised me. It was Saturday night, it was Ireland, and it was a big city. There were a lot of drunk men walking around, but none of them harassed us or even tried to talk to us. It was great. I wish cities in the US were like that!!

That night, we tried to go to a pub that Zoë’s brother had recommended to us, but they didn’t let in anyone under 18, so we were forced to find other forms of entertainment for the night. We decided to go see Bohemian Rhapsody at the movies. It was absolutely fantastic and I loved every single second of it. Queen has been my favorite band since I was 8 years old and this only strengthened my love for them. If you haven’t seen it already, you’re really missing out.

Zoë left early early the next morning and my flight was at 5, so I had some time to explore Dublin by myself. I had breakfast at the hostel and then went into the city. The main shopping street in Dublin is called Henry Street. I first went there, but nothing was open except Starbucks and a store called Marks and Spencer.

That giant obelisk is at the intersection of Henry St and O Connell St. I read somewhere once that the locals hate it and call it “the erection at the intersection” to express their disdain for this giant pole spear thing in the middle of Dublin. In any case it helped me to find Henry Street. For lunch I took myself out to a pub and had leek and potato soup and a half pint of Guinness. This would have been so expensive in London, but Dublin was much cheaper, which I also enjoyed. The soup was also good. Like really, weirdly good. 10/10 would recommend. I then headed to the airport, bought a lot of Guinness at the airport, and flew home.

Overall, Dublin was a really cool city that had such a different feel than London. London is a very affluent city with TONS of people. Sometimes I get the feeling that people in London think they are better than others. In Dublin, a much more industrial, smaller city, I didn’t feel this at all and even though I was there for only roughly 40 hours, everyone seemed a lot more down to earth. They were also so friendly. In London, everyone minds their own business. They will help you, but people in Dublin went out of their way to ask us if we wanted pictures taken, if we were enjoying our time in the city, etc. I love London, but it was good to get out of it for a little bit and explore other parts of this beautiful continent. I can’t wait to get back and do some more exploring of Ireland.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for all the amazing educational opportunities I’ve had over the years and will hopefully continue to have in the future. My year in Germany and this semester in London was only the beginning of what I hope will be a life full of plane rides, passport stamps, and new adventures as I continue my education and career.

The past couple weeks have been a bit more relaxed than in the middle of the semester, mostly because the semester is coming to a close, which means that I have big projects, presentations, papers, etc. due in every one of my classes within a very short period of time. It’s great. Thankfully I am done with a presentation that was highly stressing me out and it went pretty well, so that’s a huge weight off my shoulders. Now there’s just the rest of it…

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. It’s much more relaxed than Christmas, we get a five day break, and it’s centered around food, so how much better could it get?? I didn’t want to miss out on it this year, so my friend Amaya and I hosted a Friendsgiving for us and 12 other students living in our house last Thursday, and it was one of my favorite Thanksgivings ever. With the help of our RAs, we got a very large turkey from a local butcher along with a delicious smoked ham for anyone who didn’t like turkey. We cooked all day and at the end, we had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, chicken and dumplings (noodles homemade by Amaya), green beans, cranberry sauce, dim sum and curry made by some friends from China, macaroni and cheese, and apple pie, pumpkin pie, brownies, candied yams, and cookies for dessert. It was a full spread and our kitchen smelled AMAZING.

I was really busy cooking the whole day so I didn’t get a ton of pictures, but those are the ones I have. Amaya got me an apron with the Tube map on it that was very useful and, at the end of the day, very dirty. I was a little worried about the turkey just because it was so huge and expensive, but it came out perfectly and we have a TON left over. I was up until 1:30 am carving it and getting all the meat I possibly could off of the bones. It was a little gross, not going to lie, and vegetarianism didn’t sound like a wholly unattainable or negative idea. I was exhausted by the end of the day but it was 100% worth it and it was a nice break from writing essay upon essay upon essay. The rest of the weekend was spent trying to get ahead with homework before the stress of the week set in. I ate more turkey than I ever have in my life and we are still neck deep in it. Our kitchen has become even more of a social space than it was before, all of our friends that we invited to Thanksgiving have basically moved in and we have a homework party every night. It’s really nice and I’m so thankful to have found such great friends that I get along with really well and will have when I get back to campus.

Other than Thanksgiving, I haven’t been doing a ton outside of class the past two weeks. I love exploring and traveling, but I also like getting good grades (and sleeping in isn’t too bad either!). The weekend before Thanksgiving I went on a school trip to Hampton Court, where King Henry VIII lived, among others.  I had a weird obsession with Henry VIII as a kid and I would check out every book from the library that I could find that was about him. I’ve come to hate him after realizing how horrible the things he did were and why he did them, but it was still cool to be standing where all the things that I had read about as a kid had actually happened.

Other than that, I did a one day Snapchat takeover for Arcadia where I went on the university’s snapchat and then went around London and took pictures of cool things that were going on. Christmas season is in full action right now so there was a ton to do. I first went to Covent Garden, an open air shopping arcade where I can barely afford a coffee.   Then I went to Chinatown, where I was going to get lunch until I realized that to get the full British effect, I should probably eat the national dish, Chicken Tikka Masala. I took a quick walk through Chinatown before taking the Tube down to Soho to get some curry.

  Then some friends came and we met up to go to tea at a cute little tea parlor. It was fairly expensive, which is why this is the first time I’ve done it on my own bill, but it was fun and delicious. I had a lemon and blueberry cake with something called a “wellness latte” which tasted like flowers and milk. After tea we walked around one of the Christmas markets that is up around London in Leicester (prounounced lester) Square. From left to right, that’s Amaya, me, and Alex.  After a quick pit stop at home, I went out yet again with them and two other friends to a pub by our house called the Whittington Stone. They have good deals on food so after spending a good amount of money that day already, I didn’t want something super expensive.  Only Jill and Alex are in the picture, but Amaya and Lauren were there as well. I had fish and chips with mushy peas and a beer I didn’t really like. There was karaoke and one guy had one pint too many and was singing “Uptown Girl” terribly, so we left after finishing dinner.

This last Monday for one of my classes we took a small field trip to the Olympic Park in Stratford, where the Olympics were held in 2012.

The big tall thing that looks like a rollercoaster was actually a super long slide that we went on. The people running it made us wear elbow pads and cloth helmets and we all looked really dorky.

The slide was fun and it was really cool to see where the Olympics were. The 2012 Games are the first that I remember really watching and being excited about.

Last Tuesday the 27th, I took part in Arcadia’s Day of Gratitude service day and helped out at a lunch for older people at a church in an area of London called Kentish Town, two Tube stops away from where I live. I did it once earlier this month and met some great people who wanted me to come back for this Christmas party they were having, so I did!

I made sandwiches, helped to set up and clean up, and had a really good time! My friends Shelby and Flynn were also there and the woman in our picture with the glasses was our favorite because she was so funny and bubbly.

That’s all for me this time. I only have two weeks left in the semester and one month left here in this amazing city. I knew before I came that it wouldn’t be nearly enough time to really explore London and the UK, and even though I’ve done so much this semester, there’s till so much that I haven’t done. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to come back another time! Darn.

Happy almost-December, I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. Everything is decked out in snowflakes and Christmas trees here even though the weather is staying around 50 degrees. I’m not complaining.

Happy December!!

We are finally catching up to real time, folks!

This past weekend, 9-11 November, I went on a weekend trip with my school to a tiny little town on the west coast of Wales. I have always wanted to go to Wales as that is where (some of) my ancestors came from and my last name is Welsh, so along with being a super cool place just because of the history and beautiful landscape, it had an extra dimension to it for me. I really, really enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it to anyone thinking about taking a trip across the pond.

After a six hour train ride, we finally made it to the hostel we were staying at near Pembrokeshire, Wales. Our first night was fairly relaxed, I hung out with two of my friends from Arcadia and had a really good evening.

The next day was very busy. We got up, had a full English breakfast, and headed out on our first activity. One of my friends, Lauren, and I were together for the first activity, which was to explore the tiny little city of St. David’s, which is actualyl the smallest city in the UK with only about 1000 citizens. As I said in my last post, all a town needs to be a city is a cathedral, so St. David’s is a city because of its 12th century cathedral dedicated to (you guessed it) Saint David, the patron saint of Wales, known as Dewi Sant in Welsh. Welsh is a really weird language. Just saying. We first went to the coast where Saint David was supposedly born.

As you can see, it was cold and wet, but I guess that’s just this part of the world for you. We then headed to St. David’s Cathedral.

Again, November 11, last Sunday, was the centenary of the end of the First World War. This cathedral had an art installation to commemorate the men from that parish who died in WWI. If you look hard, you can see clear figures in the pews representing the men who served and died in the War. I have personally really liked and appreciated the memorials to soldiers that have been popping up in what the Brits call “Remembrance Season” and I think it would be nice if the poppy tradition was brought over to the United States.

The next stop was the city of St. David’s, which I unfortunately did not get any pictures of. I will tell you, though, that I had the best piece of carrot cake there that I’ve had in a while. It was fantastic.

After the trip to St. David’s, we went back home and had lunch. For lunch we had a traditional Welsh lunch of cawl, a vegetable stew, some amazing bread with butter and Welsh cheese, and Welsh cakes for dessert, which were like flatter, better scones.

After lunch my friends and I headed about an hour to Pembrokeshire Castle.

The castle itself dates back to the 11th century. In the second picture you can see the largest map of Wales in the world.

The town around Pembrokeshire Castle was really cute and the setting sun gave us some good lighting! The last picture is me (obviously) with my friends Jordan (in the blue) and Lauren. They both go to Arcadia so I’ll have some friends when I get back to campus in January!

The next day was our last. We decided to sign up for something a little more “adventurous” and went on a four-mile hike through some really slippery mud. The views made it worth it, though.

I, miraculously, did not fall, but Lauren was not so lucky and ended up with some very muddy jeans. But look at those views! It was so nice to get out of the air pollution in London and into the fresh air right off the Atlantic. We saw a lot of dogs too, which made it even better than it already was.

For lunch we had what is known here as “jacket potatoes,” or baked potatoes.

After lunch, we took a long, long train ride back home and got ready for our week. The next morning wasn’t easy but the weekend was so fun, I got to see and learn so much and I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to go to Wales and see another part of the country I’m living in! Have a great week!