Hello From Greece!

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Hello everyone! It’s been about 2 months since we’ve been living in Athens, and we feel a little bad about not posting yet! We thought it’d be good to talk about the beginning of our time here anyways! I’m (Ella) gonna be talking about the first couple of weeks and initial beginning of school.
Naturally we both had lots of ideas of how everything would happen but we probably had the same amount of “but I really have no idea how it’s gonna happen”s as well. I had thought a lot about going to Europe, but less about how we would actually start our time at Deree, The American College of Greece. We met some fellow students at the airport after our 15 hour travel day, and were picked up by our program director. The study abroad provider helped transportation, helped with our bagging and was overall a huge help being with us in our first couple hours in a completely new country.
We were dropped off at our housing, which is composed of all study abroad students from around the world, mostly the US. We didn’t have time to unpack one bag before orientation and introductions began. 
College in America is the same as college in Greece, in almost all respects. The school wants to set you up for success and they made this clear! We went to mixers, orientations, campus activity fairs, met important people and went on neighborhood and school tours all within 2 days of arriving. The school and students equipped us with everything we would need to know how to succeed.

The scariest part was over, and in the end wasn’t scary at all study abroad students who we were now living with were all on the same boat. We were very excited to see how everything would happen and excited for our semester to begin!

Weekend in London

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The best part about studying abroad in Europe is the fact that it is cheap, quick, and easy to travel around the rest of the EU. Myself, another girl from my ISA group, and two other friends I’ve made here at UL spent the weekend in London, England! We were only there for a total of 48 hours, but we filled that time with everything touristy possible!

   

London is only a quick hour flight from Shannon Airport and of course due to delays; we arrived in London at 4 am with the intentions of starting our day at 8 am. Our hostel was a quick 15-minute tube ride to the London Eye. We began our morning going up and around the London Eye to see the stunning views of the city. Then we walked to see Westminster Palace and Abbey which both had amazing gothic architecture. The girls and I also took a boat ride down the famous Thames River to see even more of the city and the famous Tower Bridge. Then we made our way to Leicester Square where we ran into a red carpet movie premiere of A Beautiful Boy! We saw Timothee Chalamet and Steve Carell! It’s easy to say that this made our trip.

Day two we began our morning bright and early to catch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. Sad to say we didn’t get to see the Queen, but we were in awe of the palace beauty. After this, we found ourselves a cute coffee shop where we ended up hanging out for a few hours before we made our way to the Tower of London. Let’s just say we were so excited to see the crown jewels! We then ended our trip by seeing a production of the School of Rock, which was awesome. I cannot wait for more weekend trips in the near future!

 

Cliffs of Moher

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It’s sights like these that make you forget how much work you’ll have to do with you get back to campus. Right now, Sarah and I are in the midst of the most stressful time in being abroad. Classes here typically do not have daily work, which sounds nice and all until you reach those later weeks in the semester where everything is due. At the moment, Sarah and I are working on assignments that are worth half or more of our final grade. In classes, you will typically have a paper worth about 50% and then either a presentation or group project or maybe even both. We are taking a total of five classes over here, but only have two exams to take during the two week exam period. So we are looking forward to traveling most of December!

Our weekend excursions with ISA make us forget about all of our school work. These excursions allow us to see the beautiful western country of Ireland. On this excursion, we saw the stunning Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs of Moher are one of the biggest sites to see while visiting Ireland. So a trip to Ireland is not complete until you have seen the famous cliffs!

 

 

The Ring of Kerry

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From Sarah Hughes in Limerick:

ISA took the group on a bus tour of the Ring Kerry. The bus stopped along the way so we were able to take pictures. The Ring of Kerry is so beautiful. It is amazing to see what God has created and I stand in awe of His wonderful creation. Also, I touched the ocean for the first time! The water was really cold and it was the Atlantic Ocean. It was an incredible experience.

Adare-Rugby Game

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From Sarah Hughes in Limerick:

In the last week of September, I went to a small village named Adare. This place is so cute and very small. ISA took the group on a small tour of the village and we went to a castle. The castle is very rich in history and I enjoyed to hear all of it.  The streets are lined with different places to eat and different boutiques to go into. Most of the boutiques were very pricey but it was nice to walk in and look around.

 

After going to Adare, three friends and I went to a Rugby game. Since we are in the study abroad program, we were able to get free tickets and go to the game. It was very cold outside so it was a good thing I wore my jacket and hat. The team for Limerick is Munster and they won. Rugby is an interesting sport because it is somewhat like football but different in many ways. I was a little confused so the person sitting next to me explained what was happening to my friends and me. I have met so many amazing people here in Ireland and I am enjoying every second of it.