China was a blast and I am looking forward to revisiting. To my surprise, I really got into the rhythm of the different cities I visited and feel as though I could go back comfortably. My visit to the Xi’an Jiaotong University of Architecture and Technology was very welcoming and I am grateful for Professor Zhang and her students’ hospitality in welcoming me to the city of Xi’an and their beautiful campus. We enjoyed a delicious meal together, and then I was off to Berlin!

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After a ten hour plane ride, I got to an AirBnB in Berlin, and was welcomed to a nice dinner of Bratwurst with my host, Ingeborg. I explored the city a bit to get over jet lag and surprisingly felt fine the next day in time to meet up with my study abroad group.

The first week of Berlin has been really amazing and I’m glad I have a tour guide, Geza, who lived here for 20 years. He knows the city like the back of his hand, and so much history about it. So far we have seen so many interesting examples of architecture and landscape architecture in this city and have been walking A LOT. I haven’t felt this great in awhile, and am happy to be walking over 20,000 steps a day!

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One trip I want to highlight is the Wald. Berlin. Klima. Park in the Grunewald Forest in Berlin. The Grunewald Forest is 7,400 acres of forest on the western side of Berlin. There are exhibitions throughout the 2.5 mi path in the forest explaining the history of the forest, efforts to protect it, and the future of the forest and what is really needed to sustain the city of Berlin. At the end of the trip, we climbed a tower and experienced the whole forest overlook.

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I look forward to visiting more sites in Berlin, and moving to Essen in a few days. Auf Wiedersehen!

Next Stop: Zaragoza, Spain

Just three hours before departure and for the first time ever I find myself beyond the second page of google images. Google does a good job of providing feedback where one seldom has to go further than the second page of results to find what they are looking for, but that isn’t the case for me. Just hours before committing to a two-month lease of living in Spain, I am still searching for what to expect, where to go, what to see, what to eat, what to say, everything–far more questions than can be answered by just one page of google results. Nerves are to blame, but it’s mostly eagerness. For weeks I have been brushing up on my Spanish. Whether it has been binge watching a Spanish based Netflix series or dedicating time out of the day to visit duolingo, it’s all been leading to this moment. My suitcase is packed to capacity, my apartment is booked and I am ready to go.

Despite the unlimited amount of info online, I am well aware that it is impossible to fully know what to expect for these next two months. But one picture that notably catches my eye is this one. Although this image only captures a mere portion of Zaragoza, for me it is more than enough. It depicts exactly why I am excited for: to be immersed in a completely new environment. To learn life and to grow mentally is what’s in store and it is because of this I am excited.

In less than a day, I will be in a whole new continent that I have never been to! I am excited, but I am also nervous. I feel like it is always thrilling to experience a whole new environment that I am not familiar with, but also people tend to have an anxiety of uncertain towards unknown future. This is not my first time to travel out of my home and live for a long period already, but still, I am always nervous about new encounters.

I truly believe this study abroad experience will be an amazing experience for me to step out of my comfort zone again. No matter what I meet, I will definitely learn and reflect myself. I enjoy the process of reflection, I think it teaches me to know how to become a better me. As an immigrant, I think being in the United States had made me change a lot in comparison to who I was years ago. The culture, the difficulties, the people, all have taught me how to develop a self that I love. I look forward to knowing more about this world; the world is big, reading books does not teach you more than truly understanding by experiencing it yourself.

I am very excited about this month, I hope I learn as much as I want to. Now, let’s go back to packing.

Germany was an unforgettable experience and I am so grateful that I was chosen to go on the trip with my classmates to explore new and beautiful cities. This trip has really changed my outlook on how another country operates and how America needs to improve. Sustainability and green infrastructure is the way we need to go. The way Germany re-uses storm water, the way they work with transportation, the way they do planning with mixed use models, and they way their recycling system works, all focus on creating a smaller carbon footprint. I knew America was wasteful with their oversized goods, but I didn’t realize how wasteful it was to have all of the extra and unnecessary goods. Life feels more simple without them and there’s less stress not having to take a car everywhere. Everyone is out and socializing in Germany compared to America where everyone is more segregated and keeps to their self because we’re becoming such an automobile society. We need more walkable cities and towns in the U.S.. More social media can also have a large impact as to why most people are staying indoors now a days. Just with these few examples, I’ve learned a lot and hope to see changes within America so that we can become more active, healthier and more social as a society. I’m glad I decided to study abroad during my college experience because it really has changed me and my thoughts for the better. I would recommend for any student to take the opportunity to travel and see other places. Never get comfortable in your life! Change and experience is a good thing because you never know where it’ll lead you.

For our short break, a group of us have decided to take a weekend trip to Amsterdam, the city of bikes. I loved it there because everyone was walking around and biking, there’s a lot less traveling by car there. The city is very walkable, but you have to have a whole new level of alertness when walking around there. It’s a lot to take in because you’re trying to watch out for pedestrians, bike lanes, cars and mopeds in a small area. Another neat thing about Amsterdam is that there are canals running through the city, they were highly engineered to work with the water running through the city. This allows for small boats to travel through the city which promotes some tourism, but allows locals to get around through new modes of transportation.

Some of the other places we visited in our short visit were Van Gogh’s Museum and viewed the infamous sunflower painting, starry night, the bedroom, and his self portrait. It was really cool to see because growing up, we’ve always learned about his paintings and how iconic they were. Seeing them in person really brought the paintings to life through the textures and colors that he used.

One of my favorite places there was visiting the northern sea. It reminded me of the beaches back home, but it was definitely less smelly with a lot more jellyfish washed up on the shore. Wish we could’ve spent more time in Amsterdam, but it was a great experience.

Our last city we stayed in was Hamburg, we were there for a short 3 days and travelled around as much as we could. We walked around the city as much as we could. They had a similar, waterways as Amsterdam. We also visited the iconic Elphilharmonie, a large concert hall with spectacular views.

We also visited a smaller urban park that was designed before the public had a say in it. Most parks that are installed usually take community input for ideas, needs and wants, but none of the apartments around the park are built yet. Even with the park being built first, it seemed to already be getting good use. I really like the playgrounds in Germany compared to the ones in America because they’re a lot more abstract and test the strength and agility of the kids on the playground. They let the kids use their own imagination compared to having equipment that is very straightforward.

Overall, Hamburg was a fun place to walk around and tour. We had just enough time to see what we needed to see.