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Study Abroad

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Tiny pebbles slid out beneath my feet as my sneakers hammered into the rough terrain of the steep dirt path. My pulse pounded in my stinging ears as I roughly breathed in and out, puffs of air mingling with the chilling breeze of the morning air. It had taken an hour of wandering the streets of Edinburgh at 5:00 a.m. just to find the damn park; we were four college girls without a smart phone or a GPS—we were completely out of our element. Now, the 4:15 alarm and the mile extra we had walked getting here was all going to be for nothing if I didn’t make it up to the top of this damn hill before the sun rose. I couldn’t hear the steps of the others around me; all I could hear was the sound of my own panting and the thoughts running through my head, what…

If you look closely at the bench, you will see a phrase etched into the stone face. I start with this bench because it is actually the start of my story. “Where’s Galway?” I asked my cousin when he returned from his own semester abroad. Before I even considered which college I wanted to go to, I knew I wanted to study abroad. I don’t know when I decided I wanted to go, I just knew I would travel somewhere old and beautiful. My cousins had gone abroad while I was a freshman in high school, and as they were the closest thing to older siblings that I had, I thought they were pretty bad-ass to travel across an entire ocean alone. It was never a question of where, either. Ireland is where my roots are (as you can see by my ghostly pale face and mane of red hair),…

John Steinbeck exposed the beauty of the Amalfi Coast in Italy to the tourist world when he wrote an article in 1952 in Harper’s Bazaar about the town of Positano. He most famously said, “It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone.” Positano and the Amalfi Coast are now beckoningly real to me. I spent my last abroad trip there this past weekend alongside my best friend from home whom is studying in Florence. It was a weekend of fun in the sun, but I never think Steinbeck would have predicted his article to cause as much of a boom in tourism as it has in the villages that sit on the hills of the coast. I decided that the best and easiest way to see everything that Amalfi has to offer (as well as travel there…

“Let’s go to the beach-each, let’s go get away!” I finally got to have my first proper beach trip of the semester! I say proper because the weather in Barcelona was “Sunny and 75” (Let’s see how many more songs I can reference in this post)! Barcelona was such a fun weekend getaway and a complete spur of the moment trip! I had nothing to do last weekend and the flights were so cheap that I couldn’t pass it up! I think the most amazing part of this mini vacation though was the view from my hostel. I walked out the front door and I was just inches from the sand. Yes, that is my view! I stayed right down the beach from the famous W Hotel where all the celebs stay and I paid about 1/20th of the price per night! My first morning in Barcelona I spent exploring.…

This past week has been a whirlwind as I explored the beautiful country of Italy for spring break. I visited two regions, three cities, and five villages all in the course of four days. Despite the time crunch, I saw more history than in any other country I have visited; I also ate more pasta, pizza, and gelato than I ever have in my life. The first stop of the trip was an overnight stay in the small city of Pisa. You can’t go to Italy without seeing the infamous leaning tower and taking the cliché picture of pushing it back in to place! The day we went was Easter Sunday and the streets were bustling with people shopping at the local flea market taking place in the city square. There was much more to the city than I had anticipated, and snapping that one picture was definitely worth the overnight…

The month of March has been all about exploring the beautiful country I have been living in for the past two months. I’ve had visitors along the way to go on these adventures with, and this past week I was lucky enough to have my family along with me. I took them to a few places I had already been, the must sees of Ireland, Blarney Castle, the Cliffs of Moher, and Connemara and Kylemore Abbey. But I also was able to travel to new parts of the country I would not have seen otherwise (thanks to Dad’s need to have his own car despite having to drive on the other side of the road). My mom’s family is where my Irish roots are. My Nana is 100% Irish; her parents actually met on the boat coming over to America from Ireland when they were just 16 years old. Griffin…

I visited Hogwarts this week! I walked up and down the streets of Diagon Alley, I saw the cemetery where the graves of Tom Riddle, McGonagall and Moody can be found, I saw pictures of the Hogwarts Express, and I even saw the school sitting up on the hill! Okay, okay… I saw J.K. Rowling’s inspiration for it all, at least! Edinburgh was a magical city filled with so much history. Walking down The Royal Mile, the main street, you really did feel like you were taking a stroll down Diagon Alley, walking past all the magic wand shops, owl pet stores, and wizarding hat emporiums. I visited the Café where Harry Potter was first born. J.K. Rowling would sit in The Elephant House and write for hours upon hours inventing the story of Harry Potter. A plaque outside of the store marks it as the birthplace of Harry Potter, and…

My expectations of Belgium: chocolate, waffles, beer. The reality: chocolate, waffles, beer, mussels, beautiful buildings AND “French” fries. Brussels is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. It is full of importance and possesses an air of regality. You walk into the Grand Place and you feel as though you have stepped back through time. There are buildings towering above you in every direction of the square; but these building aren’t the steel skyscrapers of New York, they are ornate mason structures with gold details and statues of important figures throughout history decorating their outer walls. City hall reaches up towards the sky and 300 of these statues of mayors, politicians, painters and more look down on the square at the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come to visit this majestic city each year. And the best part of all, my hostel was right down one…

I took a huge step this past week; I made my first international excursion without the aid of my parents! Now, I didn’t say the trip went entirely without a hitch…. I accidentally left my passport at the hostel on the journey back to Ireland and didn’t realize it until an hour and a half later when I was at the airport. Needless to say, I missed my flight and had to pay a hefty price for a new one, but hey, lesson learned. I will now always check to make sure I have that little blue book before I leave. It could have been worse, I could have lost it! In just 3 days, the beautiful city of Amsterdam became my favorite place in the world (I’m sure I’ll say that about every place I go, but for now it’s Amsterdam). The city is shaped like a half moon or…

Do you remember your first kiss? The first kiss I got yesterday gave me more than just butterflies in my stomach; it bestowed on me the gift of eloquence, or as some call it, the gift of talking your way out of anything. Yes folks, I kissed the Blarney Stone! But, it isn’t as simple as leaning over and kissing a rock; you have to be lowered down the side of the very top of Blarney castle and held on to by someone as you cling for dear life onto the iron rails sticking out of the wall above your head. Terrifying, right? But I did it! I conquered one of the world’s 99 things to do before you die and joined the millions of visitors over the past hundred years who have kissed the stone. The term blarney actually means “clever or flattering” as in a way with one’s…