Two Months In!
Exchanges really are full of ups and downs and everything in between. My second month here in Manchester has truly been an experience. I feel as though I have spent more time planning plane tickets and hostel reservations for all of my trips than I have spent reading for any of my classes. A couple of weeks ago was a period called reading week, where we basically had no classes for a solid week. But, being exchange students, I chose to go to Italy instead of reading.
If you are given the opportunity to travel, I highly encourage you do to do it. You learn SO much about the culture, the people you are traveling with and yourself. You learn that things will never end up the way you originally planned them but that, in fact, will make you stronger. For example, during my time in Italy I 1) Got on a midnight train going South to Cecily instead of North to Rome 2) Lost my wallet on a train and 3) Almost got caught in a riot at the Naples train station after filing a police report for my wallet. If these aren’t life lessons learned abroad, then I don’t know what is. But although the week wasn’t exactly what I had had in mind, I’m so grateful that I was able to go and experience it first hand and learn from it. It’s so true that your exchange will provide you with some of your greatest memories of all times. Although losing my wallet did cause me some monetary problems and my British credit card still hasn’t come yet… I still had an amazing time.
After reading week, the last remaining glow of summer has been extinguished and the Manchester rain that we had been so lucky to avoid in the first month has finally caught up to us. My friends and I are finally realizing that we can no longer avoid putting off our massive amount of essays that we need to write and are finding it much harder to get together. We have decided that we are going to try and finish all of our essays early while the weather is bad so that maybe we can really enjoy the rest of our exchange.
This last weekend I went to Paris. Luckily I didn’t lose anything and the trip was amazing. I even managed to meet up with Tori (who is studying in Nantes) at the Louvre!
Next weekend I will be going to Madrid and then before you know it, it will be time to come home. Until then!
