My THIRD Study Abroad

So, here I am again... I'm about to embark on another journey of epic proportion: my college study abroad!

Some of the district 7870 RYE students

For those of you who don't know, this is my third study abroad experience.  My first and second were both with Rotary International as a short term exchange student to Ferrara, Italy in the summer of 2008 and a long term exchange student in Larvik, Norway from August 2010 to July 2011.

Ice bath in Norway

(My Blog About Norway) During my long-term exchange to Norway, I met some of my closest friends and people who I now consider to be family.  I traveled around Europe with other exchange students studying in Norway (from USA, Canada, Brazil, Ecuador, Australia, Argentina and Japan - many of my closest friends now) and became fluent in Norwegian.  This time, I will be doing a semester-long study abroad in Madrid, Spain from January 7 to May 10, 2013 hoping to do the same things: travel as much as possible, meet new people and possibly become fluent in Spain (keep your fingers crossed - I want to become tri-lingual!).  I leave tomorrow from Boston at around 6PM and I can hardly wait to begin my third study abroad.

I am a sophomore at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, MO.  I'm studying International Business and Management which I decided during my exchange year.  I am originally from Killington, VT (The Beast of the East!) where I grew up with my parents and younger brother (who just did his own study abroad to Germany this summer with Rotary).  I went to a public union high school, which means kids from several different towns went to school together, only adding up to about 100 students per grade.  Surprising?  Imagine going from a Vermont school of 400 to a school of almost 1,700 in Norway!  Now, I am in an even larger school, SLU having roughly 2,000 students per class in the undergrad program.

I will be living about a three minute walk from my host mother's house to the campus, which will make life so much easier.  I will be living with one of my Sigma Kappa sisters, Miriam, and another student who I haven't met yet.  We are going to have SO MUCH FUN!!!!!  We have orientation on the first few days after arrival where we'll meet up with the ~200 other students from the St. Louis campus to learn about the city and the Spanish culture.

I'll keep this blog updated as much as possible as this will double as my own log about my daily activities.

Adios!