2017 Fall

David Bushhouse: Post 3

David Bushhouse AIFS, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University St. Petersburg, Russian Fall 2017 Only two weeks of my Russian study-abroad experience remain, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t missing home. I miss my family, my bed, and of course the rolling hills of Central Virginia. I miss the giant oaks and the fresh air and the rural night sky. Like any city, St. Petersburg is far from nature, covered in concrete, and shrouded in smog and light pollution (plenty of regular pollution too!). Some animals have learned to tough it out in the city. […]

2018 Spring

Nate Dracon: Post 2

Nate Dracon AIFS Charles University Prague,Czech Republic Spring 2018 Hello again from Praha! It’s been almost two months now since I left the states. Everything seems to be going well, and I have finally started to travel to places that are outside the Czech Republic. St. Patrick’s Day is not a very big holiday in Europe. From what I have seen, the partying and drinking is an American construct. That weekend I decided to visit a friend in Salzburg, Austria. First thing I noticed was how cordial the people were, and more advanced the country was verses the Czech Republic. […]

2017 Fall

David Bushhouse: Post 2

David Bushhouse AIFS, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University St. Petersburg, Russia Fall 2017 Today was the first day I saw grass in Russia. Even though we’re halfway into March and celebrated the official start of spring two weeks ago, the daily temperatures here in St. Petersburg are in still the mid-twenties. Take it from me, everyone in Peter is eager to see when spring will actually arrive! This spring is special because on Sunday, March 18th, The Russian Presidential Election will be held. Election adverts are all over the place: bus stops, billboards, shop windows, the YouTube homepage, […]

2018 Spring

Nate Dracon: Post 1

Nate Dracon AIFS Charles University Prague, Czech Republic Spring 2018 dobrý den from the city of Prague, Czech Republic! I have been in the Czech Republic for almost a month now, and the differences between here and the U.S. are striking. Getting over wasn’t a problem, even for a 6’4 student. I would just say that I am accustomed to never having enough leg room. We first stopped for two days in London before taking a short flight to the Czech Republic. The first thing that made me appreciate that I was in a very foreign place was arriving at […]

2017 Fall

David Bushhouse: Post 1

David Bushhouse AIFS, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University St. Petersburg, Russia Fall 2017 I’ve been in St. Petersburg for less than a month, but have quickly noticed that шаверма, shaverma, is the most widespread and popular street-food in the city. In St. Petersburg, Shaverma stands are everywhere: next to every Metro Station, down nearly every alley, and in every clubbing district. Since shaverma stands are open 24 hours, it is the go-to drunk food for St. Petersburg locals, who call it ‘korm,’ which literally translates to “animal feed.” It’s unhealthy, always comes with a stomachache, and, as the […]

2017 Fall, Academic Year

Jamie Agnew: Post 4

Jamie Agnew London School of Economics London, England Fall 2017 I returned to London on January 2nd, 2018. The London School of Economics’s calendar is quite different from Hampden-Sydney’s as well as other colleges in the United States. You take four classes for the entire year all of which have a final exam in April or May. The only exception to this rule is if you take any Economics classes: they also have a midterm exam in the first week of January. I am not very fond of this setup because, unlike Hampden-Sydney, you enter winter break knowing that you […]

2017 Fall

Shemar Blakeney: Post 5

Shemar Blakeney Semester at Sea Fall 2017 Semester at Sea Experience First and foremost, I would like to say Thank You for providing me funding that allowed me to participate in the Semester at Sea Program. With the scholarship, I was able to obtain my passport, visas, and travel expenses. Semester at Sea was an extraordinary experience to say the least. Even though I was only in different countries for an average of 4 days, the experience I had is invaluable. From being able to visit the Taj Mahal to hiking the Great Wall and from trying different foods to, […]

2017 Fall, Academic Year

Jamie Agnew: Post 3

Jamie Agnew London School of Economics London, England Fall 2017 My study abroad experience was unbelievable. Between the things I saw, the friends I met, and the memories I made, the entire semester was all I could have asked for and then some. I had a rough idea of what the experience was going to be like because I talked to kids that had done the program already. But words can’t describe how much fun I had. London was a fantastic city to live in, and the easy ability to fly to other countries is something unheard of here in […]