CISabroad

This past weekend, the CIS abroad students went on a fantastic weekend excursion to Playa Tamarindo- a tourist hot spot located along the northern Pacific cost of Costa Rica. We traveled there on Friday afternoon via a huge charter bus. It took about six hours to get there due to rain and a lot of traffic. You know how I said that Ticos drive fast and crazy? Well that statement now applies to all drivers, even charter bus drivers. I swear our bus driver thought he was driving a little toyota camry around, trying to weave between motorists, cars, and pedestrians, flying down hills and coming to screeching ...

It's funny that after 2 months of being in Europe I finally can write about a "typical day". I've been in Barcelona for 2weeks and I finally have somewhat of a set schedule. Our housing situation was just that, a situation! We're in an apartment, but i would use that term loosely. Feels more like a dorm , we all have our own rooms but share a bathroom between the whole floor. There are guys and girls living here, and not just students. The place I am staying in is owned by nuns so it's been an interesting experience. The language barrier is most difficult because I don't speak much Spanish and they don't ...

Everything I expected from an internship abroad has been given in this experience. I had a great time and met many great people. I was nervous about the traveling in Shanghai but I clearly underestimated myself and how easy subways and taxis are. I learned many things while abroad and have rediscovered many qualities in myself I forgot existed. I am thoroughly pleased I took the time to intern abroad and would do it all over again if given the chance. After returning home I found I am not used to my old lifestyle. I feel like I should be going somewhere or doing something every day and find m...

My greatest adventure was on my return trip home, I decided to stop in Beijing on my way home for three days. In three days I seen the forbidden city, the Ming tombs, a silk factory, a jade factory, and the great wall. Also, I went shopping on wangfujing a popular night vendor street. I like this trip the most because I seen so much history and it was all about me. Very relaxing fast paced vacation. One of the biggest differences I seen in China was when I was booking my train ticket to somewhere (forget) and I had to use the restroom. The public toilet was on the floor, you simply drop your ...

Shanghai is a busy city and as such I am a busy man. Mondays through Wednesday are usually pretty mellow and you should use them to catch up on lack of sleep, maybe just evening dinners or lunches with friends. Thursday night usually is the start of club time for me. Every week I see a new club or bar and always have people to go with. The night starts at 9 pm ish and end around 3 -4. Friday is usually a rough day at work as the brown bottle flue hits pretty hard some Fridays. Friday of course more clubs dinners and maybe KTV. On the weekends we tried to plan an out of the city trip. I went to Suzhou...

As I look back at my first expectations and fears of traveling to China I realize I was way off on some of my presumption. First I found the Chinese culture to be lazier than I expected. The people at work seemed to only to the bare necessities and nothing more. People in the streets throw whatever on the ground without caring. The city has street sweepers constantly picking up the streets to they are not terrible but the people in general are lazy. Also, very few people exercised and even less had any muscle tone what so ever. Maybe this is because I was in a big city and not in the suburbs but I do...

Oy – long, slow day today. I think I would rather have a long day that flies – like yesterday. I went down to Raval to run an errand for work, but my supervisor ended up not needing it. So I spent some time on La Rambla de Raval enjoying the Fest Major festivities. There was a street Zumba class! They were playing US music though, like LMFAO. I laughed – I think there were more people standing around watching than actually doing the Zumba though. There were also these three clown- actresses – I’m not sure what troop they’re in – doing some sort of slow-motion...

I slept so late today. I mean, it wasn’t really THAT late, considering how late I stayed up, but it was later than normal. I think I got up around ten. Usually I can’t sleep past 8:30. It was nice. So I had a pretty lazy morning. I took my time getting ready and then went to the library in Lesseps. The really far away one. Pretty much just to waste time. What else was I going to do with my day?  I’ve been finding out at the end of the day about little things going on – like concerts in the park in Les Corts or street fests in Raval. I never know what’s going...

Got to work on time and we pretty much got right to work. We got the space set up and cleaned up in no time and were ready to go. When the deadline is closer and there is a consistent stream of tasks, things seem to go pretty smoothly. It’s when the tasks get increasingly smaller that work gets dull and slow. But today was okay. I left around one and headed home. I didn’t really have any plans – library, walking, enduring the lines to go see Sagrada Familia…I was planning to figure it out when I got home. I really needed to work on my research logs and I had wanted to...

Wednesday. Got up and got to work at Freedonia at 10am. It seems so early compared to the earlier weeks when daytime was 5pm. But it was okay. The venue was a mess and there was a lot of cleaning to do. A lot. It was tiring. But we got it done. I only worked until Noon or one – once the space was clean and the things we needed were in the right general position, I was let go. We needed to do the lights when it was dark outside since the front room of the venue, where we were making the stage, is lit primarily by natural light. So I had to go back at 9:30pm. I went home and talke...