Travels of a Histrionic peripatetic

My observations thus far? The Amsterdam airport is too amusing to observe. Already I have entered into a world in itself. This is literally like a little city- shops, cafés, restaurants- the whole deal. And as is found in all cities, we have our personalities. The short man with the tall woman, the family of ten, people from all over world, the mysterious guy who sits alone contemplating who-knows-what, the girl - who is probable my age- who keeps coming back-and-forth on the moving pathway, and of course, the tourist. Obviously I have not named every type of personality, but those are some of the few that stood out to me. The plane ride was long and boring. I left the Memphis airport at 7:30P only to arrive about nine hours later at roughly 4:00A (11A in Amsterdam). This was not a full flight, which meant that we could move around. I was in the middle row with an aisle seat, but of course i prefer window seats when there is not a full flight. Well, the lady next to me had left her s...

Although I studied abroad in Madrid and Bamako last year and found out just how exhausting traveling can be, I have to admit that it did not stop me from doing it at least one more time. This year, for a fall semester, I will be standing and interning in Paris! Honestly, i cannot believe that I am doing this once again- and this time for four months! Excitement, anxiety, stress, a myriad of emotions embodies me in every moment until I get to my final destination. I will explain to you a little about the program and about the Visa process. To begin with, I will be in France (thanks to Carleton of course) with the IFE program- Internships in Francophone Europe. This program is for a total of 18 weeks: 5 weeks of intense coursework, studying Parisian society as well as french history (exams, papers, assignments included), 1 week of vacation, and 12 weeks of and every Wednesday we have a class. I cannot wait until my internship begins. During my stay in Madrid, Humberto really taught us ...

Well hello everyone! I know that it has been awhile, and trust me, I am working on some posts to describe the rest of my Spanish and Malian experiences. All I can say is that not a day exists where I don't think about both experiences and how they've transformed me. Even the subtlest of things remind me of either experience. When others mention that studying abroad creates unforgettable experiences, they weren't kidding. Just sitting here trying to figure out what to write, I can't help but think of when I was in Madrid in my bedroom trying to decide what about my day was more important, or of when I was in one of the little coffee shops reflecting on customer service and the unspoken roles of that culture. The reason that I am updating this blog is not only to fill you in on other details, but also to let you know that I will be traveling once again. As a matter of fact, I will be traveling quite a bit within this next month up until December. What do I mean? Well, n...

Hello everyone! I know that it has been quite a while since I posted. I know that I mentioned my intentions on updating this after coming back from all of my study abroad opportunities. Well, as a college student you know that time is scarce. Honestly, I cannot fathom the fact that this school year is almost over. In this post, I will try to update you just a bit on what happened after those couple of weeks that I already talked about in Madrid. The last thing that I had talked about was my birthday week and the week after. So now I have the pleasure of talking about Toledo. Toledo is wonderful place in terms of the history and the area in which it is located. This is one of the (if only) places where three very well-known cultures were able to live together peacefully, if only for a moment. We had to get up early in the morning to get there because we were taking a bus, and although I lived close to the center, it wasn't as close as other people. Unfortunately by this time one ...

Hi everyone! So the days are numbered now.....I leave in less than a week- Thursday morning to be exact. In other words, it's crunch time! Now is all about finishing assignments, packing, making sure I have everything people asked me to get, and well everything else. I can't make this too long since I still have some work to do, my host mom is making lunch for ten people because it's one of her daughter's Saint Day (Día de su santo..not sure how to translate that), and we have our last walk in Retiro Park as a way to close our trip since it was the way we began it. However, I did want to let you know that yesterday two good friends and me decided to take a class on....CHOCOLATE! Yep, chocolate. And it was wonderful. When I was younger, I enjoyed waking up early; now not so much. This class was at 10A on a Saturday, and I admit it was worth waking up early. All I had for breakfast was a cup of coffee because I was running just a little late. I am glad that it was all I a...

Hello once again! Now I will talk about the week after my birthday, which was last week. Well, this week was all about getting my work done for midterms...which wasn't so much about exams rather turning in a compilation of the work we had been doing. This meant that I had to turn in the diary that we were supposed to have kept......As many of you may know, I'm not much of a writer. I love going out, meeting people, and talking about everything- not so much writing. At least, I do not like to write if I know that I HAVE to do it; I like writing if I know it is optional, and it is then that I write my best work (in my opinion of course). For the first four days of the week, Mon-Thursday all I was doing was writing endlessly. Some of the activities were pretty amusing but I guess that I am just the kind of person who likes to do it, think about it, and talk about it, not so much write about it. But it got done eventually, and I have to say, my diary looks pretty "Isabel...

Hi everyone!!! First of all- I am so sorry I have been unable to keep up with you all. It's actually quite harder to maintain than I first suspected. However, knowing that this term is almost over, I doubt I am going to be able to say much in these next two weeks. As a matter of fact, I have less than two weeks now before I return home... time flies by and I am glad that I am enjoying every moment of it. Yesterday the entire group got back from our trip to Cordoba and Sevilla, and like always, of course I have stories to tell. I have to say, they have some beautiful men in those cities! I know I am silly, but might as well look and indulge while I can. Like I said, I doubt I will have much time to be able to recount all of my stories in a timely manner, therefore, I decided that I will continue writing about my experience when I return home. Besides, I am going to have a little more than a month before I leave for Africa. Until then, I have an essay, two presentations, and two di...