First Half of Summer Break!

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This past week was the end of my in-person class and the start of my summer break! This trip has definitely been an interesting one so far that had a bit of a rough start. The first part of the trip was to Barcelona, only myself and one of my roommates went on this trip because my other friends were still finishing up classes.

We left Tuesday night after our class so we didn’t end up getting to our Airbnb in Barcelona until around 3:00 am. My roommate and I were already pretty sketched out by the street we were on to find the place, but the while entering the apartment building and walking upstairs, someone stole my roommate’s phone out of her hand and ran. She and I both were in shock.

Park Gรผell!

From then on, we were very uncomfortable the entire time, we were afraid to leave our belongings in the Airbnb during the day when we weren’t there. We saw people staring at us like we were a prized possession and we consistently saw people on the streets running from police cars. Despite this, we still attempted to give Barcelona a chance and visited a few important places while there, but only seemed to see more and more crime and feel more and more uncomfortable the entire time we were there.

Beautiful views in Barcelona!

On Thursday, we flew into Naples and immediately had a much better experience. This included eating at one of the first pizza places in the world: L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele! One that many of you may know from the movie Eat, Pray, Love starring Julia Roberts. It was incredible! We then went to Sorrento and managed to fit in a day trip to Positano which was absolutely gorgeous!

Pizza from one of the first pizza places in the world! (Naples, Italy)

One of the reasons I loved my visit to Switzerland was because of the beautiful mountains, and I loved Lyon because of the views we had of the city. Now imagine a city on a mountain like Positano. Best of both worlds. Sorrento, as you may know, is known for their lemons. Therefore, we, of course, ate lemon everything while there, including lemon gelato (it is still Italy after all).

The buildings on mountains in Sorrento!

One of my friends on this trip also had a friend from school who was studying abroad in Sorrento, so she spent the weekend with us as well and introduced us to some of her friends! If you don’t know this already, I love meeting people so I enjoyed their company.

The main street in Sorrento!

We have now just arrived in Greece and if you’d like to hear about our adventures here as well as those in Munich, stay tuned to my blog next week! Ciao for now!

Madison Mougalian

*FIE: Foundation for International Education Scholarship <i>Hello in your host country language</i>: Hello <i> University</i>: University of Florida <i>Expected graduation year</i>: 2021 <i>Destination</i>: London, England <i>Program Provider</i>: FIE: Foundation for International Education <i>Major / Minor</i>: Business Administration – Sports Management <i>Future career aspirations</i>: I see myself working with a professional or college athletic association in working behind the scenes with the business aspect. <i>Top 3 goals for study abroad</i>: To immerse myself into London's culture; To travel to other countries all around Europe; To utilize my internship to gain valuable, hands-on exposure to my future career path.