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 […]

Semester

Quentin Smith (Reflection on New Zealand)

My twenty-first birthday is easily the most memorable birthday that I will probably ever have, but not for the reason that many other people would say. On that day, I landed in New Zealand for my study abroad adventure and my first time outside the United States. The first few days at orientation were incredible—we were all exposed to some of the New Zealand landscape, the wildlife, and the food relatively quickly. After a short period at orientation, my group elected another gentleman and me to represent them all as chiefs at a traditional Maori marae, or meeting house. I […]

2015 Spring

Thomas Bourne: Post 4

Thomas Bourne IFSA-Butler Dublin, Ireland Spring 2015 February 22 Hello again, Hampden-Sydney! I just got back from a long weekend trip in Slovakia and Austria. I skipped by Friday class to fly to Slovakia, where I immediately was faced with a challenge—the language difference. I wasn’t sure how to react, so I figured that the safest thing for me to do was find my hotel first. I had no idea how to navigate through the city because all of the road signs were in Slovak. I eventually found it and checked in, then spent the evening walking around the old […]

2015 Spring

Thomas Bourne: Post 3

Thomas Bourne IFSA-Butler Dublin, Ireland Spring 2015 February 10 Hello, my friends! I hope all is well back on the Hill. I can’t believe that the semester is already flying by; it feels like just yesterday that I arrived in Dublin. UCD Dublin so far is great, but nothing can compare to good ‘ol HSC. Since arriving in Dublin, I have missed a couple of things. The first are my friends back at Hampden-Sydney. When Hampden-Sydney says that the friendships you make there last forever, they’re right! I wish my friends were here to experience everything. Besides missing my friends, […]

Semester

William Duncan (Barcelona, Jan. 23)

While choosing to attend Hampden-Sydney College was a difficult decision to make, the decision to determine my study abroad location to be Barcelona, Spain proved to be oven more challenging. As I don’t know what I want to do after college, I have been set on studying abroad for some time now. I’m biased towards warmer weather, so I knew I wanted to be somewhere close to water and in a warm climate. I had never been out of the country before and I knew I wanted to see Europe, but I was unsure where I wanted to spend the […]

Semester

William Imeson (Valencia, January 16)

William Imeson (Valencia, January 16) I have now been in Valencia for almost a week and it is already far more than I could have ever anticipated. As I prepared for the trip, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, other than the basic cultural differences that come with visiting another country. I knew that I would be taking some classes with my program and that I would be with other students my age. I knew that Valencia has two official languages: Spanish and Valencian. I knew that people in Spain eat different kinds of food at different times of […]

2015 Spring

Thomas Bourne: Post 2

Thomas Bourne IFSA- Butler Dublin, Ireland Spring 2015 January 16 Hello from the Emerald Isle! I’m really thankful to Hampden-Sydney College for giving me the chance to fulfill my dream of traveling to Ireland. One might ask: why would I pick Ireland instead of somewhere like Germany, Spain, or Australia. The answer is fairly simple—history. The history engrained in Ireland is both mystifying and rich. The preservation of the Catholic Church at the fall of the Roman Empire and the multitude of bloody battles over centuries for Irish independence are two fine examples of the history of this fine country. […]