I had a fabulous time studying abroad for a Maymester (May Semester). Even though my time was short I was still able to make so many great memories and see a lot of cool places. My trip took me to London, Paris, Nice, Milan, Venice, Florence, Vatican City, and finally Rome! I feel like these are all places everyone has their bucket list as they are such popular spots and are popular for a reason.
My personal favorite places were Paris and Venice as the Eiffel Tower was just a dream come true to see, and Venice is so unique in its location and history. On my specific program we had class most days and class was from 9am-12pm in the hotel or the AIFS office if that city had one. After that we would be on our own for lunch then have a museum tour from about 1-3 pm. The rest of the evening was free to do what we wanted; most of the time we would check out a restaurant for dinner and do something local or unique to the city. For example, in Venice we did a gondola ride and in London we rode the London Eye (pictures included).
The title of the class was “European Art and Culture” so we got to see some very famous sites like the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. While the art was interesting to see, I was personally more interested in the culture of each place and being able to see locals interact with their environment. I also thought it was interesting to compare modern European culture to that of America’s.
The two biggest culture shocks I faced were the public transportation system and the restaurant bill. Cars are not at all as common in Europe as they are in America, most people rely on the public transportation system, but the chaos ensues when something goes wrong. For example, in London on our first day of class, our teacher was over an hour late because her tube did not run at its correct time. In Venice we relied on the water taxi and that made us 30 minutes late for our museum tour as the boat was going slower due to the current. These are not problems we think about in America, we just get in our car and go. It is important to always have a plan and a backup plan of how to get to where you’re going. Also, paying the restaurant bill is different than it would be here. Sometimes the bill can be split, but typically the bill is brought out altogether with everyone’s drinks and meals from your table and one person is expected to pay it in full. If you’re with your family usually this makes sense, but since we were a bunch of college kids only wanting to pay for our single meal, we had to find ways to transfer money between us.
These are just a few of the tidbits I took with me from my time abroad and I could not recommend going enough. This is seriously a once in a lifetime opportunity to see so many wonderful places and meet so many new friends that you would otherwise never know. I went overseas not knowing anyone and now I have 20 new wonderful friends who I can go see and have an excuse to visit their cool home cities.
Erica Render (BS HHP Sort Management) spent the Summer 2023 semester studying abroad in England, France, and Italy through AIFS. Erica had the following to say about studying abroad, “There is no better way or time to see the world. Studying abroad makes it easy to meet like minded and like aged people who will impact your future.”
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