I’m doing an internship in my hometown in a B-corp called Smartrip. This business is a travel agency with a social focus that sells hotel rooms with huge discounts. The company gets the discounts because hotels aren’t always selling their rooms specially in their low season, so they give these rooms to Smartrip. The unique thing about this company is that it gives 80% of their profit to social programs which helps people with low resources to start their own entrepreneurship.

I’m in my third week and I’m so happy!! I’ve learned so much and I can’t believe it’s almost over. I’ll miss the people and the work I’ve done!

I return from my trip to Spain different than when I left. I heard over and over how amazing of an experience study abroad would be, how I would make some of the best friends I would ever have, and how I would create memories that last a lifetime. I was skeptical at first–how could every single person have such a wonderful time without at least one complaint? I was skeptical during the trip as well. Sure, I was abroad. But I was living my life exactly how I would have if I were at home, right? Wrong. It would take me until now, a week after my return, to realize that.

Overseas, I did a lot of things for the first time. I lived outside of my parent’s house for the first time. I used a metro system for the first time. I didn’t work a part-time job while taking classes for the first time. I ran a 10k! I did all these things without the stress of what comes along with them. I didn’t have to worry about making rent–I had scholarships for that. I didn’t have to worry about paying for gas–I had the metro. I didn’t have to worry about balancing school, work, and social life–I only had two out of three anyway. I could focus on having fun and splurging on Zara and the midterm coming up instead of rent and bills and the other stresses of “real life.”

And I learned so many lessons abroad. I opened my mind and let the things around me influence my thinking processes, my judgments, my take on the world around me. It was like my trip was a miniature lifetime–I was born in Spain, I became comfortable and grew up in Spain, I went to college in Spain. I was able to experience “real life” in this utopian, stress-free environment. I went through hard times, but I also went through elation; there was so much good to out-way the bad that all-in-all I would rave to the next freshman class about how study abroad is one of the most amazing experiences of your life.

I even hope to be able to tell my take on the trip to others who are interested. I want to sit them down, take their hands in mine, and say “do it.” I overcame hesitancies about money, living alone, and faith in order to make this experience real. And I would love to be able to ease the minds of others with the same hesitancies.

My intention of this post was not to be vague, but to talk about a bit of the overlying themes and changes I saw in myself throughout my study abroad experience. I’m still me, but I feel wiser.

I am so glad I did this.

I have entered my third week abroad in Seoul, and can’t believe that I’m already nearing the halfway point of my journey. Six weeks will be far too short of a time to explore a city as massive as this. Luckily with the aid of the subway system, every week I’m able to travel to each end of the city to see as much as possible. I’ve gotten to see massive and dense shopping districts like Myeong dong. The colossal World Cup Stadium here in Seoul. I’ve explored the endless Yongsan Electronics Market. And atop the giant Namsan Mountain I was able to go into Seoul Tower, with a view so incredible that I’m sure if I looked carefully, I could find all of the sights I just listed.



One thing that has stood out to me while I’ve been here is how kind everyone has been to me. You might be surprised to learn that despite choosing to travel across the entire world to get here, Korean is not the Asian language that I studied at UofL. I actually studied Mandarin, which as you can imagine has not been remotely helpful. As a result I have relied heavily on the help of others. Sometimes it was a restaurant employee who had to be incredibly patient as I tried to communicate, praying for a picture on a menu that I could point at. Sometimes the help came from a friend of mine who actually lives here, who was kind enough to translate between me and his friends so I wouldn’t feel so out of the loop during their conversations. I feel very fortunate to be in a city full of such hospitable people, not unlike Louisville. I can’t wait for the coming adventures I’ll have here, and I’ll update you soon with stories of them.

As I reflect over my first trip abroad, my memories are nothing but joy, love, and happiness. Preparing for my first trip abroad left me anxious yet so excited to see for myself what the world outside of the United States has to offer, and boy, was I in for a treat. On April 30th, 2015, myself and about 15 other students and staff ventured over the Caribbean Ocean to the most beautiful place I have ever seen in my 21 years of life. When we arrived, we were all so excited and overjoyed to finally be in Trinidad, the place we had been dreaming about during our entire spring semester. A couple of days after our arrival in Trinidad, we flew over to it’s sister island, Tobago, for some relaxation and fun. The bond that I got to develop with each of the students and staff members on the trip during this time was absolutely amazing. We connected so well, and many of us stated after our return that it was one of the best times of our lives. We even got to swim and scuba dive in the Caribbean Ocean. The people were so friendly, the food was delicious, and the resort that we lodged at was beautiful. When we returned to Trinidad, we started our service work within the elementary and high schools. The children were all wonderful and so, so, so, well mannered. A group of the kids at the high school connected with us so well that we exchanged our Facebook information so that we could keep on touch. Our saying for the remainder of our time there was “Only Facebook!”. On our last day of service, we volunteered at an orphanage were we met the most cheerful, upbeat, and beautiful souls. It was really eye opening when the realities of some of the children’s lives were shared with us. Many of the children would stay at the orphanage their entire life because in Trinidad adoption isn’t very common. Many of us hated to leave the kids and owners of the orphanage after we volunteered. Trinidad and Tobago are such rich cultured countries with many different religions, colors, and heritages. The most beautiful aspect of Trinidad is that despite the many differences the people may have, they all live together so peacefully and are one. Trinidad and Tobago has definitely started my passion of traveling and I am so glad that my fire was able to come to life from my time there. My heart was so full when I returned back to the states, and I was even more ready to make a difference in the lives of others!

– Nitaya Walker, Senior

What is a capea you might ask? A capea is defined as an amateur bullfight. These are the kinds of field trips you get to take while in Spain. On a Saturday morning in April we loaded up four charter buses full of students and headed out to a ranch in the outskirts of Madrid. Basically what happens is, they release a baby bull into a ring and you’re allowed to go in the ring and attempt to dodge it. It’s not like a real bullfight where the bulls are harmed. The first bull that was released was so small that it hadn’t even developed its horns yet. Then we stepped up our game and moved onto bulls that were this size. 

They don’t look that large or intimidating until they are charging you. Many of the international students were hesitant to enter the ring, but the Spaniards were eager as many of them have done this before with much larger bulls. The spaniards had finesse while the international students just looked terrified for the most part.

This was one of my favorite days because the Spaniards were able to share their culture with the international students and it was an event that helped to bring us all together.

On Thursday, June 18th, I was invited to the New Audi Q7 Release Party by the CEOs of King & Mayr. The party was held at the “Cobra 11” race track where a popular German TV show is filmed. I was able to ride in an Audi R8 around the track with a professional driver who took turns at 100MPH. I drove the Audi Q7 on an off road course which tested the degree of the vehicle. Over all this was a very entertaining and interesting event. We were only granted access to this exclusive event because of the CEOs business relationship with the Audi dealership in the Nordrhein-Westfalen Region of Germany.

During my third weekend in Europe I traveled to Dietzenbach, Germany, a smaller town near Frankfurt. I had a great time on this weekend trip in Germany. My friend knew some people from Dietzenbach and we were able to stay with them.

The first day there our host took us to a nearby town and we toured some very unique old buildings. That night we also went out to a nice ice cream shop and sushi restaurant for dinner. The second day my two friends from my study abroad program and I went to Frankfurt, Germany. Here we were able to go to the Städel museum and see their series on Monet. We saw several famous paintings by this artist, such as The Japanese Bridge, his Cathedral series, and countless more. This was nice as I had never really been to an art museum before. Next we walked on the lock bridge over the Main River, which lead to the Frankfurt Cathedral. This was an impressive Catholic Cathedral with many very old graves and structures inside. After this we rode the train back to Dietzenbach and had schnitzel and fries that our host made for us.

Our third day in Germany we went to visit Rothenburg, Germany. This was a very beautiful city that had a lot of medieval buildings to see. We started by walking along the old fortress walls and then going to the city center where the town hall was located. They had a very interesting Christmas shop near the city center. It had a ton of ornaments and decorations you could buy for a fair price. After this we went outside the fortress to a park area where they had a lot of landscaping and old tombstones. We took many pictures here of the fountains, hills around the fortress and statues in the various gardens. Back inside the castle we saw another Cathedral that was very beautiful, but it wasn’t as large as the one in Frankfurt. We finished this small city with a trip to the Torture Museum. This was a very interesting and large museum and was fairly inexpensive to visit.

When we made it back to our home in Dietzenbach we had dinner with our host’s family. This was the best dinner I had in Europe thus far. We had bacon wrapped strips of cheese and sheep, potato salad, bread, baked potatoes and grilled ribs with a homemade barbecue sauce. After dinner our hosts took my friends and me up the hill by their house to a tower where we could see the whole city and take pictures with them.

The next morning we got up and traveled to Frankfurt to get on the train back home. We said our goodbyes and left back to Bregenz, Austria. I really enjoyed the people we stayed with. They were very nice and taught us a lot about Germany, German words and their culture.