Month: April 2015

2015 Spring

Thomas Bourne: Post 5

Thomas Bourne IFSA-Butler Dublin, Ireland Spring 2015 April 2 Thomas Bourne, April (Dublin) I believe spring has arrived in Ireland, but possibly not. Last week, the weather was perfect. The temperatures were comfortable, the sky was clear, and there were lots of students with ice cream playing on the various greens around campus. I really wanted to imitate them, but I had to get to class and I had way too much sugar last week. This week, however, the weather has changed for the worse—it’s cold windy, raining, and sometimes hailing. The drastic change in weather reminded me a lot […]

Semester

William Imeson (Valencia, Feb. 23)

I have been in Valencia for a little over a month now and it’s finally beginning to feel almost normal. The initial shock of waking up in the mornings and realizing that I’m halfway around the world has worn off, and now I’ve settled into a fairly standard weekly routine. I have classes from Monday through Thursday, and these three day weekends are fantastic. The UVA center here offers 90-minute Spanish classes twice a week that feel pretty similar to the classes at HSC. Each morning, I have three options for travel to get to class. I can walk, take […]

Semester

William Duncan (February, Barcelona)

It already feels like I’ve been in Barcelona much longer than one month. As I’m notoriously bad with directions, I shocked myself with how quickly I learned my way around the city. I didn’t get much practice with using the metro in my home town of Pinehurst, North Carolina. My first time ever on a metro was a week after Christmas in order to pick up my Spanish visa for this trip. Now that I live in a city where my primary source of transportation is the metro, I purchased the T-Jove pass, which is a three-month long pass. At […]

Semester

Taylor Anctil (Provence, March 4)

My walk from home to school takes about twenty minutes if I walk leisurely, but I can get to or from campus in twelve minutes if I’m walking at a quick pace. No matter the day, I thoroughly enjoy the walk from home to school and back again. I have probably taken fifteen different routes to school, but there are three main routes that I take regularly. The first is very much “as the crow flies,” and I use this route when I’m running late or need to get to town in a hurry. My second route is my favorite […]