Returning Home

So I just returned home last week from Rotterdam. It was hard to leave all the people that I’d meet while abroad, but once they started leaving to go home I started feeling ready to go. It made me realize that the people I met and the time I had with them, although for only a few months, were the best part of my time abroad.

I was also able to travel quite a bit after I was done with classes, which was the main reason I wanted to study in Europe. Everything is so close to each other that you can take a plane or train anywhere for a relatively cheap price. I traveled with a couple people I’d met in my exchange group the two weeks prior to coming home. We went to Edinburgh which was a really cool, old looking city with a castle right in the middle. Then on to Paris and London. We spent almost a week in London and still weren’t able to do everything that we wanted to. There are so many things to do and see. I would also recommend purchasing the London pass to anyone who is traveling to London next semester. It was about 50pounds, and it gets you admission into a lot of different things around London (Tower of London, London Bridge, Globe Theatre, Unlimited subway ticket, and lots more) we easily got our money’s worth. I think out of the places I went to and visited, London and Amsterdam were my favorite.

As far as Rotterdam, it started feeling like home after a while and was a great place to live. I think before I left I was wishing that maybe the program would be based in Amsterdam because it would be a better experience to live there, but in the end I’m glad I was in Rotterdam. There are still a lot of things to do there; it’s not as touristy and less crowded. Amsterdam is still only 50 minutes away, and it seemed like a lot of people still came down to Rotterdam for their bars and clubs.

These pictures are: view from my apartment room in Rotterdam, us outside of Notre Dame Cathedral, in front of the Arc de Triumph at night, and the campus at Erasmus University.

I would totally recommend some sort of study abroad program to anyone wanting a new experience, a change, and a challenge.