Even though I have been in Copenhagen for nearly four months and feel very much at home here, I'm getting to learn the city all over again now that the weather is gorgeous. Everywhere I go people are sprawled out sunbathing in parks, most of which I had never even realized existed. The sun rises around 5 a.m. (or so I hear, you can be quite sure I have yet to experience this firsthand), and it's light until at least 9 p.m. Instead of hurrying around or avoiding the wind and rain of the outdoors, we now walk around all the streets with shops, sit outside cafes, and barbecue.

Continue reading "Spring hits Copenhagen" »

This is a story I wrote in my Writing From the Self course. Since it is a true account of something that happened to me this past February in Bath, I thought it would be something to post here in the blog.

Continue reading "Fifty pence and goodnight" »

The Greek Orthodox Easter is very different from the Western Catholic Easter celebrations. There are some similarities, like the selling of chocolate-shaped bunnies and the dying of hard boiled eggs, but when you break it down there are far more differences.

Continue reading "Orthodox Easter" »

This week was my crazy week. I had papers and creative writing portfolios due. Now I have a calm week before finals and then the semester is over. How did the semester go by so fast? What do you mean I only have two weeks left? It has come as a bit of a shock, but I'm not freaking out the way I was at the end of last semester when I was preparing to leave Spain, because while I'll be very sad to say goodbye to my housemates, :( at least I'm not leaving England. I'll be here (or in Europe) until Aug. 11.

Continue reading "LGBT and Up Lansdowne Road" »

I absolutely cannot believe that I leave Rome in less than two weeks! But I can't say I wasn't warned... I mean, everyone I've ever know who went abroad told me (more than once), that it was going to a) be the best time of my life, and, b) it was going to feel like only the blink of an eye. Personally, I think that was a bit of an understatement. Either way, knowing that it's all slipping away from me, day by day, I'm certainly beginning to appreciate all the wonderful things I've seen and done thus far.

Continue reading "Ordered chaos" »

No worries, mate, I'm still alive and well down here. The past few weeks have been what should be my busiest weeks of the semester in terms of school work. Midterms (yes, I know you all are finishing up), projects, presentations, assignments...why is it that professors feel the need to make everything due at the same time? Also, before this weekend, it rained for about two weeks straight. Cold and rainy? Wait, am I in London or Sydney?

But seriously, folks, I didn't realize how cold it would get here! Tonight (aka right now) it is going to be in the 40s. Fahrenheit. I'm really appreciating all the warm clothes that everyone teased me about for bringing. It is a little depressing that the weather is only going to get worse while I'm here.

OK, time to talk about all the fun things that have happened!

Continue reading "Wait, is this Australia?" »

I've been living in Europe now for more than 16 weeks, which to me is mind-boggling. I feel that after 16 weeks I have gotten a good glimpse into the European lifestyle. Look's take a look of what I love, hate, and flat out find interesting here in Spain. All of these are my personal observations from what I have experienced in Europe and I may be stereotyping or even offending a few people or an entire nation. I apologize but when I leave Europe these are the impressions that I will take with me, even if they are incorrect.

Continue reading "Observations from an extranjero" »

The task of documenting my 25-day Spring Break trip is pretty terrifying. My journey started exactly one month ago, so remembering the details that made the trip so great might be tough. On top of that, I've written about 4,000 words in papers in the past few days. No time to rest though, because if I wait much longer the memories will be lost forever. Plus, answering the question, "How was your trip?" a million times gets pretty old... How do you answer such a general question? I usually just go with "good." Due to popular demand, here's a more thorough description for your reading pleasure. Ready. Go.

Continue reading "Dave Gone Wild - Spring break edition" »

Das Semester ist drei Woche alt und ich habe (endlich) meinen Stundenplan! Ich belege vier Kurse--Deutsche Geschichte, 1945-1990; Deutsch Grammatik; Kunstgeschichte, Impressionismus bis Expressionismus; und Marketing--und ich besuche eine fünften Kurs, Polikit in der Nahost zwischen Israel und Palestine. Ich habe nur neun Kursstunden pro Woche und nicht so viel Hausaufgaben, die wir für unsere Kurse für einen Not machen müssen, aber gibt es doch noch viel zu tun. Es gibt immer etwas zu lesen. Für jede Sitzung muss man fast immer ein paar Texte lesen, manchmal in beide Deutsch und Englisch. Und wenn wir keine Texte für Kurs haben, die wir lesen müssen, haben wir zwei Hausarbeiten für unsere Geschichte und Grammatik Kurse, die wir Bücher und Texte finden müssen und lesen müssen. Und ich versuche jeden Tag die Zeitung zu lesen, aber, naja, geht es nur manchmal, weil ich schon so viel lese. Es kann schwierig und arbeitsam werden, so viel zu lesen und besonders so viel auf Deutsch zu lesen, aber gibt es keinen Zweifel, dass mein Deutsch sich schnell verbessert. Ich lese viel öfter hier in Hamburg, als ich an Bucknell lese--aber wenn man fast keine „extracurrectular activities" hat, ist es leichter Zeit zu finden, zu lesen.

Continue reading "Moin Moin!" »

Before I left for Spain, I decided that I wanted to go to Morocco at some point during my time abroad. This past weekend, Robert, Adam, Emily and I traveled to Africa to see Fes. Tangier, a port city of Morocco, is only a few hours or minutes by ferry (depending on the ferry) from Spain. On Thursday, we took a bus to Algericas and began our adventure.

Continue reading "Marvelous Morocco, or, How I was almost run over by a mule" »