Chester

This week my program traveled to Chester by train! The city has expanded outside the ancient wall, but surrounding the center of the city is an ancient Roman wall. It was designed to protect the city from outsiders, keep all the animals in, and served as a training ground of the soldiers. We walked on …

British Life

So much has happened every single day there is no better way to tell you than a daily breakdown. But first, an introduction! What is really cool about my program, that none of us quite knew, is we have our weeks broken down in a way of exploration. The first two, middle one, and last …

Travel!

Traveling to Manchester was not too bad. I got to the airport in Raleigh, North Carolina, at 10:30 am. I did not want to run into any problems. Everything went very smooth. My bag was two pounds over and I didn’t know if the airport would let me through without a charge. They notified me …

Covid Summer

Everyone prepares to go abroad differently. For me and COVID I have had many many MANY new fallback plans as COVID is ever evolving. As I mentioned in my last post, putting my heart into the adventure as of now is still hard for me. I have been holding off on cutting ties to classes …

Sister Schools

What is neat about Hope College and Liverpool Hope university (LHU) is that they are sister schools! This means that I can enroll directly into the school without going through a third-party organization. This is nice because there are less steps to go through, and makes the process a lot easier on me. My advisor …

Closing in!

Hi everyone, I am so excited to share my semester abroad with you all! I wanted to start by explaining my choice with Liverpool Hope University is followed by how COVID has shaped my abroad experience. I chose Liverpool Hope University because of the arts department. In the field of dance, it can be challenging …

Abroad and On Campus?

The past few weeks have been crazy as I was on campus as students moved in and classes started for the fall semester. I got questions about how strange it felt but honestly, I loved spending the first week and a half in Holland. The energy and excitement from the new freshman was amazing. And …

Halfway Point thoughts

I’m sitting on the train, eating one of Joanne’s Bagged 24-hour Baked Scones (4 for 2 euro, how could I have resisted that?) and staring at my screen. It’s 16:25 and the sun has already disappeared, dark purple flowing over the sky to fill the empty space. Past the reflection of myself and the Irish …

Where’s the Spera in Deo? A look into religion of Modern Ireland

The place demands attention. Controls it, in a sense, the way a preacher must have controlled the attention of his flock in years past, spitting in their faces warnings of hell and brimstone. That was then, but in 2020 the scene plays out a little differently. Both the preachers at Christchurch Cathedral and the Dublin …

Ireland: Myth and Magic

“Do you see that over there, up on the wall next to the driver?” I ask my friend as we slide into our seats on the bus. A line of IES students file their way in behind us. I point to a wooden design the driver must have put up on the wall. “Remember when …