We had a single afternoon of free time in London and we made the most of it, seeing Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and then having lunch and shopping at Piccadilly Circus with Emily and her best friends.
The first part of our adventure in England was attending a game at Vicarage Road Stadium, watching the home team of Watford FC take on Plymouth. Our seats were at field level with just enough room between the seats and the actual grass - at eye level. I'm pretty certain that we will never get the chance to be so close to professional player again. Watford is currently in the Championship League, although with pro/rel, it was part of the Premier League only two years ago. The game was an exciting 0-0 draw and it was a great way to battle through jet lag.
In early August, Emily and Maureen, along with 100 of their closest club soccer friends, flew to England for a ten day trip to train, play and explore London and Manchester. Although Emily has been talking about this trip for months, Maureen had very low expectations - and boy, was she taken by surprise. They had a really great time on this trip - the training was very high end, the games were excellent and the time spent with our friends was priceless. Follow along for our UK adventures!!
Elizabeth's travel through Germany and Poland was without a doubt the most difficult part of her entire study abroad experience. She and her friends encountered every problem that could exist, beginning with security issues in the Amsterdam Airport, a delayed flight, rude customs officers in Germany, the overnight bus being delayed by an hour, then their bus seats simply not existing on the bus, very few English speakers in Poland, and more.
They traveled to Poland to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau; their tour was scheduled for 12:15pm, but it was abruptly changed to 2:40. All trains from Krakow to Oswiecim appeared nonexistent, even though they checked all details before the trip. A train station officer helped them find a train to a different town and told them they would be able to get to Auschwitz from there, so they hopped on a train and hoped for the best. The ride was two hours, and then they were told to take a bus to Oswiecim. From there, they waited for a shuttle to Auschwitz and then waited 30 minutes for their tour guide; when it became clear that their tour guide was never going to show up, they decided that they would go in by themselves.
It was an incredibly frustrating process, but in the end, all that mattered was that they made it to the memorial, and were able to see Auschwitz-Birkenau ourselves. It was a place that all of us were really looking forward to seeing and even though we were unable to get the full experience, it was still very moving.
It took roughly 4 hours to get back to Krakow; waiting for shuttles that never came, walking 20 minutes to a bus stop, no running trains, etc. They eventually made it onto a bus where they stood in the aisle throughout the hour drive back to Krakow, finally arriving at their AirBnB at 10pm!
Germany and Poland were definitely interesting and exhausting experiences. They had to make a lot of adjustments, keep calm, and learn a lot of life lessons. They also discovered that one of the best ways to keep a positive mindset is to use humor to get through.
The last educational leg of Elizabeth's study abroad trip ended this past week in the Netherlands. After arriving on Monday night, she spent Tuesday and part of Wednesday in the city of The Hague, a coastal city which hosts two international organizations; the OPCW (organization for the prevention of chemical weapons) and the ICC (international criminal court).
She visited the OPCW on Tuesday, where she met with an officer from the public affairs division, who explained the values and processes of the OPCW, then fielded questions from her class for almost 30 minutes. It was definitely her favorite of the organizations they visited - the representative was very informed and discussed parts of the OPCW that applied to multiple majors and career paths. The rest of Tuesday was free for the students so they took the opportunity to visit the coast of the North Sea.
On Wednesday morning, her class had its last international organization meeting: the ICC. Unfortunately, the trial that they were scheduled to sit in on was delayed two weeks, so instead, they had a presentation followed by a Q&A. While very informative, everyone was definitely sad to have missed the trial!
In the afternoon, her class split in half: they were given the choice to either return back to Paris or continue on to Amsterdam. Naturally, Sophia, Abby and Elizabeth joined the group going to Amsterdam. On Wednesday night, they stayed in a hostel, meeting up with classmates to go out and explore as well. Thursday consisted of a canal tour in the morning, followed by the Van Goh museum and dinner with one of our professors.
Elizabeth recently had the opportunity to visit a new country and continent - Africa. She went to Cameroon for about a week at the end of th...
