Dear Readers,

Buon giorno! My name is Margaret and I am a junior about to study abroad in the majestic and bustling city of Roma, Italy. But before I tell you anything about myself, I'd like to say a big Thank You -- especially to my wonderful family and friends -- for reading this blog in the first place. Your support and interest mean more than you know. I look forward to having an amazing time, and I hope that you can enjoy my wild and crazy adventures along with me!

Dear Readers,

Hi, my name is Evan Unger and I will be spending the spring semester in Granada, Spain. Let me tell you all about myself. I am a junior management major with potentially a minor in Spanish and a minor in economics. I am from Allendale, N.J., which is located 40 minutes from New York City. I live with parents, my brother and sister, and my dog, who I will all miss. I like Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain. Just kidding.

For as long as I can remember, I have dreamed of studying abroad in Australia. The perfect climate, the amazing and vastly diverse scenery, and the friendly and welcoming citizens have all added to my desire to spend time in the country. After years of anticipation, the time has finally come to travel abroad for a semester. So here I am, a week into my semester in Ireland.

Wait... whaaaaaat?!

I apologize for neglecting my blogging duties. I was traveling around Europe in November and landed back in the good ol' U.S. of A. right before Thanksgiving and then it was time to finish up my internship and begin finals season before the holidays. Needless to say, my semester was a whirlwind! But I've recently taken some time to look back at my pictures and really reflect on what an amazing experience it has been. So, without further ado, I will try to recap my Europe trip as best I can.

Right after our presentation at the London School of Economics, we departed Waterloo Station via the Eurostar.

**Updated with Photos**

Hola,

My fellow Bucknellians and I finally arrived in Spain after leaving Saturday, Jan. 5, at about 8 p.m. The plane ride was uneventful and I mean that in a good way. I do not particularly enjoy flying, as I believe that nothing without feathers and a beak should be doing 500 mph at 30,000 feet, so an uneventful flight is a blessing. We landed in Madrid at about 9 a.m. Once we got off the plane, the plan was to find Professor Delgado and take a bus to Granada.

"Life at any time can become difficult: life at any time can become easy. It all depends upon how one adjusts oneself to life." - Morarji Desai

I was home in New Jersey a few weeks ago and at Bucknell less than a month ago, but that all seems like a distant memory. I suppose being on the other side of the ocean will have that effect.

Hello everyone!!! My name is Sarah and I will be spending the semester in Sydney, Australia. I will be studying at the University of Sydney, or, as they call it in Australia, Sydney Uni. I'm not 100 percent sure, but I think I'm the last of the bloggers to leave for our respective countries. I leave on Feb. 11 and don't arrive in Melbourne (for orientation) until Feb. 13! Door to door, the trip will be about 30 hours.

How exciting: a new semester is beginning, and once again Bucknellians are heading off to different parts of the world, or back to Lewisburg, Pa.

I am so happy about the opportunity to continue my blog experience. (Thank you, Bucknell!) Once again I will be heading off abroad, but before I get to the semester that awaits me I'd like to try and fill you in on the goings on of the last few weeks...and then I'll get back to the future that awaits me...

Hey everyone. Well, I just completed my first week of living in Spain. I'm still here. That's a good sign.

Yesterday a very exciting event took place... I finally received my passport back from the Greek embassy in NYC. With it came the oh-so-awaited student visa, nicely tucked in the middle of my unused traveling pages. In case you haven't realized it yet, I am still state-side. Yes, for another week and a half I will be home while my friends head back to classes. I'm not complaining, of course. I enjoy my family, especially my kitties, and I have time to hang out with friends from home who I rarely see anyway. But the arrival of my passport and visa shocked me into reality. I am headed to Greece on the 26th and I won't see any of my friends in the states for the next four months.

The time has finally come! I have been eager and anxious to start my experience in Copenhagen since about four days in to winter break and Saturday's flight is no longer a distant mark on my calendar. Now that my upcoming semester is becoming to set in as a reality, as opposed to simply the reason my inbox is always full and my to-do list seems to have no end, I have really started to think about all of the things I am going to get the opportunity to do and how best to utilize them.

Last Friday marked the end of my first week of classes as well as the end to all the stress and acclimation that accompanied it. So now that the weekend had finally arrived, it was time to go explore the nightlife of the city, right? Or maybe make a daytrip and see some of the sights in the area? Not exactly.

Part I (Departure)

Ahhh, the wonders of travel... and oh how it has its pros and cons. On the 17th (this past Thursday), I arrived at the airport totally prepared (physically, not so much emotionally) with all my papers, suitcases, et al. only to find my flight canceled and the impending doom of bad weather whispers all around the airport. So, after being rerouted twice (I got to visit the lovely city of Amsterdam from 6:45 to 9:45 a.m.) and being chosen, of course, for extra special screening at the security check, I settled as comfortably as possible in one of those faux leather chairs at Gate 5, and waited for my flight to board. Even before leaving the states I learned a valuable lesson: expect the unexpected. No matter how prepared I think I am, it will never be enough.

Que tal?

Well another week has come to pass here in Granada. Time flies when you are napping half of the day. I have begun to settle into my new life here in Spain and have become used to dodging cars and mopeds on the sidewalks and overhearing Spanish conversations as I walk through the streets. As an extranjero (foreigner), I continually make observations about the Spanish culture from an American point of view. First, I would like the declare Granada the city of old men and small dogs; both are bountiful in the streets of Granada.

Or I guess I should say Welcome to Copenhagen since I would be kidding myself if I said I knew how to pronounce that. While this language still confuses me like crazy (the Danes thought it would be funny to add three additional vowels to the alphabet even though they don't pronounce half the letters in words anyway), I am beginning to feel like I know Copenhagen a bit. And from what I know, I absolutely love it!

I'm settling into a nice little routine here in Cork and I am starting to feel comfortable with my surroundings. I'm used to my schedule, I don't get lost in the city as often and I am slowly learning how to cook. (I made chicken quesadillas last week. They completely fell apart, but my chicken cheese goo-mush gave me hope for my culinary future.) The more I think about it, however, the more I realize that I shouldn't be getting too comfortable here. Much of my time abroad will be spent away from Cork. Even though I will be away until late May, I have very little class after March 20 (which marks the start of a month long spring break, followed by a week of class, followed by a week off to study for finals, followed by a three-week final exam period when I'll only have a few exams). That is a whole lot of free time that I hope to spend traveling, so I met with a friend last night and we created a tentative travel schedule through Spring Break.

So already a week has breezed by, and during that time I feel that I've been doing nothing but learning. Every minute of every day is a lesson. Which is exhausting, but fascinating. Italian culture and even the Italian's basic approach to life are completely different from the U.S. (much more so than I had feigned to imagine, anyway). So whether it's in class, on the street, in a café, or in some Mannerist cathedral, I'm breathing all things new. I'm seeing everything like a child sees it, for the first time: Monuments, ruins, cobblestone walkways, traffic signs and the sharp, blue sky.

Hello world! The France blog is finally online and ready for reading.

Sorry it's taken me so long to update. Settling into my new life took some time, and once I was settled, I got busy very quickly!

I'm hoping to update twice a week now, so I'll use this first post to give you a general idea of what it was like coming from the U.S. to France, and the second one (on Wednesday) to describe my daily routine and post pictures and videos illustrating what I've been up to.

I arrived in Athens on Sunday around 6 p.m., just in time to see the beautiful red sky of sunset. It was wonderful, but with sunset come darkness and with darkness comes my inability to make sense of my surroundings Being on a bus, I didn't feel so lost because our driver knew where we were going and I wasn't really supposed to. It wasn't until we (my four fellow roommates and I) were dropped off on a corner in the middle of a city that I started to feel a little lost. Now where?

Now that I've finally gotten a chance to settle in, sleep, and explore a bit, I figured I would share some observations I have made so far about Danish lifestyle and culture.

Hola todo el mundo.

Another week in Spain has come to pass and I have been quite busy. The first three weeks here consisted of an intensive language course that is meant to kick up our Spanish a level or so. It was one of the better Spanish classes I've probably ever taken. First, my professor was Spanish (I think that may be a first) and second, we were able to ask almost anything we wanted about Spanish culture. One day, we spent over an hour discussing palabras feas (or bad words).