Paris was incredible. By far the most beautiful, amazing place I’ve ever been. They have the bus tours like the ones in Berlin but I would walk and use the subway system. You can get weekend and all day passes for the subway and when you walk you get to see all of the amazing architecture in the city. Everyone has to walk up the Eiffel tower, don’t take the elevator! It’s an awesome feeling of accomplishment and amazing views if you walk up. I would definitely stay till dusk and watch it light up at night. I didn’t while I was there because we were afraid to ride the subway that late at night (our hostel was pretty far out of the city) but I really regret not doing it. We went do Disney Paris while we were there too. If you are a Disney fan I would totally go. It’s different from the parks in the US and totally worth it. Especially the fireworks show at the castle at night.

Getting ready for this weekend’s trip to Paris, France! Definitely the weekend I’m most excited for. Disneyland, the Eiffel tower, Notre Dame, and so many other cool things all in one city, I can’t wait! One thing to do though is make sure you book a hostel way in advance for Paris. They apparently book up really fast and are pretty expensive. The only other thing I have for you today is: if you are ever in Germany/Austria/somewhere with a German culture eat a doner kebab. It’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten in my entire life. Just do it 🙂

I went on my first “solo” excursion over the weekend to Berlin, Germany. Not exactly what I was expecting but definitely cool! I went with 5 other people in the program and we had a blast. My suggestion would be to get on one of the hop on hop off bus tours because Berlin is way too big of a city to try to walk the whole thing. The bus tour was like 10 Euro per person and totally worth it. Make sure you go to Checkpoint Charlie while you’re there-it’s very busy but very cool! And make sure to see the area of the Berlin Wall that is left. We ate dinner on a boat that cruised the river while you eat and it was amazing. The city is absolutely beautiful at night! Also there are some great hostels to stay at right outside of the train station that are really affordable and in a great location. The train station itself is really cool too-take a few minutes to look around it if you have time.

Today is one week since I’ve been here. I’m finally starting to get used to the new culture. It’s definitely a shock for your brain to not really be able to understand what the people around you are saying and to get used to not being able to read any of the street signs and stuff like that. Our classes have started and the professors are really cool and the classes are neat. I’m taking International Business and International Management where we learn about stuff like sustainable business practices and the process a company goes through when they’re globalizing their business. So far it’s really interesting especially the sustainability stuff because Europe is way more “green” than America is. Everyone recycles here and is super environmentally conscious. It’s an interesting take since most of what we learn in the US is just profit based business practices. I’m excited to learn more about how business works over here.

So first things first-Jet Lag…It’s no joke. I’m a Louisville native so I live there all the time. For my flight to Austria I choose to fly on the group flight (another really cool thing about the KIIS program where most of the students fly over together to give you extra time to get to know each other). Our travel plans were kind of intense because Bregenz doesn’t have an international airport and the closest one is about 2 hours away. So my entire day was travel, travel, travel. I left Louisville with my family around 7 and headed to Cincinnati, which is where our first flight was departing from. We got to Cincinnati around 9 and stopped for some breakfast which everyone should do before they get on any flight because airport food is always expensive. After breakfast we went to the airport and I got checked in for my flight and checked my luggage and whatnot (by the way for the girls out there, I had one checked bag, a carry on, and a pretty full backpack and was fine. I know people say to take as little as possible but I had a lot of stuff in those three bags and was okay getting around the airport and whatnot by myself) and then said goodbye to my family which wasn’t as sad as I thought it would be. I had too much adrenaline and was way too excited to be sad! So basically I spent the next 18 hours or something like that on a plane which was very, very boring. I tried this technique where I thought I would only sleep during the hours that I would normally be sleeping which didn’t work at all. If you’re flying overseas my advice would be sleep as much as you possibly can. Take sleeping pills if you need to because if you don’t then you will be a zombie once you get to your destination which is no fun at all. I missed basically my entire first day here in Austria because I hadn’t slept at all. So when you’re on a plane just sleep. That’s my only advice so far but classes start tomorrow here so I’m sure I’ll have more advice soon.

I’m Tiffany, and I am a Senior Marketing major here at UofL. I started planning for my abroad experience almost a year and a half in advance so if you’re thinking about going, just go make an appointment…like now. You don’t have to be dead set on going or know where you want to go or anything. Even if you’re just curious, go. The further along you get in school the harder it is to take classes that will actually count for graduation credits. I actually had to pick up a management minor because none of the classes that were offered by my abroad program counted towards any marketing class-Which is okay for me because I cared more about the experience than the credits.
Anyway so I’m leaving for Bregenz, Austria tomorrow with a program called KIIS out of WKU. It’s a really awesome program where basically they get a whole bunch of students and professors from the KY, IN, TN, OH area and create a mini school overseas. They have a bunch of different places where their programs go (I personally chose the Bregenz program because I didn’t want to be in a big city and it’s a homestay) and all of the classes are taught in English by the professors in the program. So if that sounds neat to you, check it out! I’m really nervous to be leaving because it’ll be my first time out of the country and I don’t really know anyone who has been out of the country either so I’ve been kind of on my own in my planning and preparing but hopefully by the time I get back I’ll be an expert and I’ll be able to help others prepare for their first time going overseas. So that’s kind of an introduction to me and my “Everyone should study abroad” inspirational speech. Talk to you tomorrow when I’m in AUSTRIA!

My name is Taylor Fiske and I’m wrapping up my last week as a student at Audencia in Nantes France. It is an adorable little city that reminds me a lot of Louisville in a few ways. It has a large student population, and many artsy things to do. I am very sad to be leaving soon as I have not had a chance to ride the big carousel on the ilse de nantes! Audencia is a great school, and this program has allowed me to make friends with people from mexica, Portugal, finland, and india! Our next week will be in Brussels and as sad as I am to leave nantes Im excited to visit a new city !