Stuttgart

My first few days in Germany were spent in the city of Stuttgart. I loved the atmosphere of this city, and there was so much to do! During the mornings and afternoons while my friend, Carsten, was still in class, I spent the majority of my time just walking around the central downtown area, and …

Day 1 of Vacation: Traveling to Germany

Sunday: My bus/shuttle left Sighisoara around 10:15 am, and I arrived at the Tg Mures airport in Romania around noon. There, I had a few hours to kill before my flight left at 2:50. While waiting for our flight, the woman next to me struck up a conversation with me. First, she tried speaking to …

Cluj

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to travel to Cluj with my host parents to visit and celebrate my host sister, Oana’s, birthday! Cluj is a larger, more modern city about a two and a half car ride away from Sighisoara. The city is filled with numerous universities, including Oana’s school for fashion and design. …

Day-trip to Brasov!

This past Saturday we spent the day in the city of Brasov. We began our morning with a hike up the Canionul Sapte Scari, or the Seven Stairs Canyon. Heights make me nervous, to say the least, but I survived the climb despite the cold, wet, and slippery ladders! The ladders were sturdy, and everyone in …

Bayram Adventures

Last week classes started back up at Koç after a long and relaxing 10-day break :). As I had mentioned in my previous post, my friend Keelia and I planned to go to a couple of different places in Turkey during the break; we actually had two other CIEE friends join us, Avery and Jordan. …

22 and Fall Break!

This past weekend has been fantastic! My host parents planned a surprise birthday party for me with the help of Elena (my Romanian language professor), Jill, and my other colleagues. It was my very first surprise party, and it was definitely a success. I had no idea that my host parents even knew it was …

Spoonfuls of Nature’s Bounty

Over the last 3 weeks, I’ve gone on several weekend trips, while finishing up classes for the semester. The first trip was to the Fiordlands to hike the Routebourn track; one of New Zealand’s Great Walks. The first day was by far the most difficult. We covered about 15 miles of ground over a 9-hour …

Kars Kars Kars!

This past weekend we had the opportunity to go on an organized trip with CIEE to Kars, a small city in Northeastern Turkey. By the title of this post, you can already tell I loved it! 🙂 It was definitely interesting to see a completely different side of Turkey: the community Kars finds itself in …

Climbing to the Scaunul Domnului (Chair of God)

  Probably one of my favorite days so far this semester was this past Saturday when we went on a hike in the Calimani Mountains. Our destination was a look-out peak called Scaunul Domnului (the Chair of God). We started our hike at 10:30 am and reached the top of the cliff around 2:00 pm! …

Elderly Club Group Outing!

One of the highlights from last week was being able to bump around on a tour bus all day for an Elderly Club Group Outing! We visited the Brancoveanu Monastery and the Brukenthal Palace near Sibiu. A team from the United States joined the excursion with the elderly, along with Damen, a Romanian adopted by …