#ipesummer2022

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Quarantine, Movies, and Velociraptors?!

Hi everyone! I’m back after another week in Ireland. As I mentioned in my previous blog, I tested positive for COVID last Friday and had to be quarantined for 7 days. That being said, I don’t have too much exciting stuff to talk about this week. The beginning of my week was mostly spent writing an essay about the factors of emigration in Ireland from 1845-1922 which had to be turned in by Wednesday evening. I still had to quarantine on Thursday and Friday so I basically just slept in, relaxed and watched a few movies on Netflix that I’ve wanted to watch forever. Since finishing my 7 days of quarantine on Friday, I’ve caught up on laundry, stocked up on snacks, gone on a fair share of nature walks, and played a bit of pick up basketball. 

The quarantined COVID crew being extremely productive and working on essays over Zoom and not arguing about whether regularly drinking milk is weird or not. (Drinking milk is not weird)

Nature Strolls

After being cooped up in our rooms for several days, everyone that finished quarantining decided to get some fresh air and go on several nature walks. 

The COVID crew fresh out of quarantine

We explored nearly all of the nature trails on campus, frequently stopping to play cards (lots of BS and Egyptian Ratscrew). Luckily, the weather this week has been phenomenal for our mini excursions around campus. 

Some of the beautiful greenery showcased on the trails around UCD’s charming campus

On one of our walks, we discovered an empty pit surrounded by concrete walls and fencing. We honestly have no idea what the pit is used for, but we theorized that it was used to house Velociraptors in the early days of UCD.

Abandoned Velociraptor pit in the middle of the woods on UCD’s campus?!

Shortly after discovering the top secret Velociraptor pit, we were apprehended by the dinosaur authorities and thrown in a jungle prison. Okay not actually, but it would’ve been a lot cooler if that actually did happen.

Picture of me being held captive in the jungle prison that may or may not have just been some bars covering a drainage ditch next to the trail we were walking on.

In addition to our little expeditions on the trails around UCD, we also decided to walk down to the ocean and play more cards one night. The random beach that we found boasted a lovely view of Dublin Bay and was definitely worth the short hike from UCD. While we played cards on the beach, we were able to witness the tide swiftly creep up hundreds of feet before finally stopping a few yards away from where we were playing. 

View of Dublin Bay at high tide from the beach that we found 

Snacks

Being cooped up in my room for so long gave me plenty of time to contemplate what snacks I was going to snag as soon as I finished quarantining. I ended up splurging on two bags of brioche rolls with chocolate chips, a box of Frosted Chocotastic Pop-Tarts, six delicious chocolate chunk cookies, and two bags of bagels (with cream cheese of course) from the Centra on campus.  

Moments before a bagel feeding frenzy

Basketball

Not playing basketball over the course of the past week as well as watching the NBA Finals definitely reignited my desire to get back out on the courts, so that's exactly what I ended up doing today. We played for several hours before finally calling it quits and ordering some Domino’s for dinner. 

Movies

Being quarantined meant that I had tons of free time to watch whatever I wanted. Furthermore, since I’m in Ireland, I have access to some movies on Netflix that aren’t usually available in the US. On Thursday night, I watched Hustle, which is a basketball movie starring Adam Sandler. If you enjoy watching the NBA and Adam Sandler, you’ll definitely enjoy watching this movie. I ended up watching Inglourious Basterds on Friday which I thoroughly enjoyed , but it is a bit gory so it may not be for everyone. I spent Saturday night watching Fight Club which is another top tier movie in my opinion.

Anyways, that's it for this week's blog. Thank you all for reading. Until next time!

Dominick Thornton

Computer Science 

Big 10 STEM and Irish Studies at UCD

[umichenginabroad]

Adventures on The Emerald Isle

Hi everyone! My first week in Ireland has been unreal. I arrived in Dublin around midday on Sunday. Most of Sunday and Monday were spent unpacking and exploring the stunning University College Dublin (UCD) campus. The rest of Sunday and Monday were spent playing pick up basketball at one of the basketball courts on campus. My Modern Irish History class began Tuesday morning followed by an informative field trip to EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum in the afternoon. Wednesday morning and afternoon consisted of 7 hours of physics including a lecture, tutorial, and lab. Wednesday night was occupied by more pick up basketball games. Another physics lecture kicked off my Thursday morning accompanied by another physics lab in the afternoon. Thursday was also karaoke night at the UCD Clubhouse Bar which ended up being where most of the students in my program spent their night. Friday’s classes consisted of another history lecture and a history tutorial. Pick up basketball consumed most of the night once again. On Saturday morning, we set off on a day trip that included a demonstration at Irish Working Sheepdogs and visits to Hollywood, Wicklow, and Glendalough. Saturday night was spent at the Keavan’s Port pub where some friends and I watched the UEFA Champions League Final while enjoying a few drinks. Sunday, the day I’m writing this blog, is more of a chill day. I slept in, did some laundry, and am going to grab some groceries and food later tonight before classes start up again tomorrow. 

Arrival

My flight from Chicago to Dublin luckily only took a little over 6 hours. As we landed, I could see plenty of the picturesque eastern coast of Ireland. The Dublin Airport was also extremely nice minus a slight delay collecting our baggage. From the airport, some friends and I split a taxi to UCD for about 50 euros. During the taxi ride, two things kind of shocked me. Number one, everything was green. Every leaf, every blade of grass, every vine was a vibrant green. It was almost overwhelming at first seeing how green everything was, especially coming from Michigan. The second thing I noticed was how nice the roads were. In Michigan, potholes seem to be more common than road signs at times, but I don’t think I’ve seen a single pothole here yet.

The vibrant Irish landscape as seen from the Irish Hollywood sign

UCD Campus

During my first tour of campus, I noticed that everything was extremely modern and organized while still incorporating an abundance of nature everywhere you go. A great deal  of the buildings seemed to have been built within the past five years or so. The apartments, gym, and other facilities on campus are all extremely nice inside. Beautiful tile and brick walking paths connect all the buildings. There are also two small lakes that a variety of ducks and a few swans call home. The swans look extremely charming at first but we’ve come to find out that they’re not so nice to their fellow birds. We’ve witnessed a few times where a swan has chased one or more of the ducks out of the water for seemingly no reason at all. 

A couple of swans along with some of their babies

As I briefly mentioned earlier, a couple of friends and I found an outdoor basketball court a few minutes away from our apartments the first day that we arrived. We’ve been playing pick up games there almost everyday after class so far. We’ve met a ton of local people and other people that are in our program as well as other summer programs here at UCD.

The food that is provided as a part of our program has been insanely delicious. We had a welcome dinner on Monday at the remarkable UCD University Club restaurant that was mouthwatering. Other than that, almost all of our other meals are provided by Pi Restaurant. In my opinion, all of the meals here have blown the dining hall food at Michigan out of the water so far. 

Steak dinner provided by the UCD University Club restaurant

EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum

Our first trip of the program was to the EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum which was founded by a former CEO of The Coca-Cola Company. The museum was almost completely reliant on technology for all of its exhibits. What once used to be an old storage building close to the port of Dublin housing whiskey and a variety of other things now houses screens and projectors that tell the history of emigration in Ireland. 

A metal sculpture showing the evolution of ships that carried Irish emigrants (Credit: Callen Fields)

Sheepdog Demonstration

The first stop on our Saturday trip was to a farm where they demonstrated how sheepdogs are used to drive sheep. Each dog impressively responds to various whistles that instruct it where to drive the sheep. After the demonstration, we got to meet a couple adorable baby sheep along with the sheepdogs. 

One of the baby sheep that we got to meet

Hollywood

After seeing the sheepdog demonstration, we visited the Irish Hollywood and were able to get a picture with the Irish version of the Hollywood sign. The view from the sign which was shown earlier was insanely scenic.

The Irish Hollywood sign

Wicklow Gap 

Following our Hollywood visit, we stopped at the Wicklow Gap which is one of the highest mountain passes in Ireland. Were able to venture off down a little path on the mountain and take a few pictures in front of a lake farther down in the valley.

The Wicklow Gap

Glendalough

The last stop of our trip was in the small old town of Glendalough which has turned into an extremely popular tourist destination. The town is located in a valley between two jaw-dropping mountains. The town consists of an old cemetery, a round bell tower, and a few lakes among various other attractions.

The cemetery at Glendalough

The upper lake at Glendalough

The lads and I chilling at Glendalough

Bars and Pubs

Thursday night was karaoke night at the UCD Clubhouse Bar which is the only student bar on campus. Karaoke was definitely a hit that night and most of the students in the program ended up showing. Saturday was the night of the Champions League final so after getting back from Glendalough, we went downtown to a pub called Keavan’s Port where we watched the game and downed a few drinks. All of the bars and pubs were packed for the final. 

Final Thoughts

Overall this week has been action-packed and ridiculously fun. I’m hoping the rest of my program is as intriguing as this week has been. Anyways, thank you all for reading. Until next time!

Dominick Thornton

Computer Science 

Big 10 STEM and Irish Studies at UCD.

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Swimming, Ice Cream, and... Getting Sick?

Hi everyone! I’m back after my third week in Ireland. This week has been quite the rollercoaster. Monday was the June Bank Holiday in Ireland so we didn’t have our usual physics lecture that day. Since we didn’t have class, we decided to go out to an Italian restaurant in Dublin Monday night. On Tuesday, we had a full day of classes during which we watched The Wind that Shakes the Barley and learned more about the Irish fight for independence. Wednesday afternoon consisted of a trip to The Forty Foot in Dún Laoghaire where we took a plunge in the ocean and stopped for some famous ice cream and drinks afterwards. The weather on Thursday was beautiful so we ended up playing basketball till it was dark after classes. Friday night I unexpectedly tested positive for COVID so that was basically the end of anything fun for the week.

Food

The Italian restaurant that we went to was called La Caverna and was located in Dublin’s famous Temple Bar. I ended up ordering the carbonara pasta after much deliberation between that and the tortelli. The inside of the restaurant was beautiful and the carbonara was delicious. It was so delicious that by the time I thought to take a picture, my plate was empty. Sorry about that. Anyways, I do have a picture of some ice cream that I bought from the Centra at UCD on Tuesday after class. I ordered one scoop of mint chocolate chip and one scoop of a bubble gum flavor. Both flavors were quite delectable. 

Mint chocolate chip and bubble gum flavored ice cream from the Centra at UCD

Today, I ordered a large New Yorker pizza from Domino’s along with a side of twisted dough balls since I can't go anywhere.​​ The entire pizza and all six dough balls were gone within a matter of minutes once I brought them up to my room. To be fair though, that was my only meal today and I was practically starving so it's not as insane as it sounds. 

The Forty Foot

The Forty Foot is a popular swimming location in Dún Laoghaire that we visited earlier this week. The weather was decent that day, but it was definitely a little chilly because of the wind. Nobody that I’ve talked to actually knows how The Forty Foot got its name. It's basically just a 10 foot rock that people jump off of into the Atlantic. The water was frigid the first time I jumped in. I also got a mouthful of saltwater that I definitely wasn’t expecting because I don’t think I’ve ever swam in the ocean before. Despite the freezing cold water and the mouthful of saltwater, I did jump in a second time just for fun. 

The Forty Foot in Dún Laoghaire (We jumped off of the rocks partially shown on the left side of the bottom picture)

After everyone swam for a bit, we walked down the road to Teddy’s Ice Cream which is home to the famous 99 whipped ice-cream cone. I got a traditional cone covered in crushed Oreos which was insanely delicious. I almost went back for seconds because it was so good but I managed to hold myself back. Compared to the Centra ice cream I mentioned earlier, Teddy’s Ice Cream was on another level of deliciousness. I don’t think too many other ice cream places that I’ve tried even come close to Teddy’s. 

After devouring our ice cream, we walked to The Forty Foot pub which had an amazing view of the city. Our group sat on a balcony outside overlooking the ocean. It was a little chilly outside but the view was definitely worth it. We ordered a couple of pitchers for our group and sipped on them over the course of about an hour or two before we decided to head back to our dorms and sleep. 

The view from the Forty Foot pub in Dún Laoghaire

COVID :(

Friday night, I found out that a few people in my group tested positive for COVID so I also took a test and unfortunately found out that I was also positive. This was somewhat surprising to me because I didn’t really feel sick. The only symptoms that I had were a very slight cough and a runny nose. Our program took a day trip to the Glasnevin Cemetery on Saturday, but I obviously had to sit out for that trip. Since Friday, I’ve basically just been isolating myself inside of my room, doing homework, and having food delivered. It is what it is though I guess.

Thank you all for reading my blog this week. Until next time! 

Dominick Thornton

Computer Science 

Big 10 STEM and Irish Studies at UCD

[umichenginabroad]

Performances in Praha

Ahoj!

This week has been super fun, busy, and filled with some super cool things! This trip has felt like it’s going by so fast and I can’t believe it’s half way done!

First off, we celebrated my friend’s birthday by going to a Yung Gravy concert at the Rock Cafe here in Prague! We were in the first row at the concert. It was a very small show compared to what one would expect in the United States, so it was super fun and interactive.

We also went to see a ballet called Leon & Lena at the Estates Theater. While I am not a huge fan of watching ballets, it was interesting to watch and the building it was performed in was super beautiful!

Some friends and I also took a day trip to Divoká Šárka, a nature park about 45 minutes from Prague by tram. We hiked the super pretty trails and hills as we explored the park. We also swam in the lake there and were able to jump in the water from a 3m high platform which was exciting! We also found a huge chair at the park and took a picture in it!

I also went to visit the Narrowest Street in Prague! It is in Lesser Town and it has a traffic light indicating when you are allowed to walk through, since only one person can fit at a time.

I have also been able to go to more beautiful churches nearby! I recently went to The Church of Our Lady Victorious and of the Prague Infant Jesus. The interior was super nice and they offered English mass.

I’m super excited to realize that I’ve started to discover some of the lesser known parts of the city and I can’t wait to visit even more!

Čau!

Maya Mileski

IPE Prague, Czech Republic

Biomedical Engineering

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World-renowned Writers and Cliffside Cows

Hi everyone! I’m back after another exhilarating week in Ireland. Monday was my 19th birthday so some of my friends surprised me with a chocolate cake from Tesco. The cake was surprisingly good considering it was from a supermarket. The next day we went on a quick little field trip to the National Library of Ireland. Wednesday and Friday were spent at the basketball court after classes as per usual. Saturday consisted of a day trip to the Cliffs of Moher and Galway followed by a long train ride home and some drinks in Dublin. Today we are just going to order pizza, stay in, and play some card games since the buses are running on a weird schedule because of a marathon going on today. 

National Library of Ireland

After our Modern Irish History lecture on Tuesday, we were able to visit the National Library of Ireland. At the museum, we explored two main exhibits featuring two Irishmen that won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The first exhibit that we walked through featured Seamus Heaney. We learned that Seamus Heaney came from a predominantly farming family and was one of the first people in his family to pursue a career in poetry. Before reaching the second exhibit, we were shown an insane Lego replica of the library that took around five years to be completed. 

The Lego replica of the library

The second exhibit featured W. B. Yeats who heavily influenced Seamus Heaney’s works. In this exhibit, we learned quite a few interesting facts about the Yeats family. First of all, we learned that W. B. Yeats proposed to a woman named Maud Gonne a total of five times and was rejected every time. After all of these rejections, he decided to propose to Maud Gonne’s daughter, Isuelt Gonne, who also rejected him. In addition to this, we learned that W. B. Yeats used to create visionary experiences with Tattwa cards. These cards along with a carved piece of lapis lazuli that was gifted to Yeats were some of the items on display at the exhibit. The piece of carved lapis lazuli was the topic of one of Yeats’ more famous poems.

The carved piece of lapis lazuli that was gifted to Yeats for his 17th birthday

The Cliffs of Moher

My Saturday morning began at 6am in order to not be late for the bus. The bus took us from Dublin all the way to Galway on the western coast of Ireland. Our first stop was at the Barack Obama plaza. The plaza was named after Barack Obama after he visited Ireland in 2011. 

Cutout of Barack and Michelle at the Barack Obama plaza

Our next stop after the plaza was at the Cliffs of Moher. The views from the cliffs were surreal. During our visit, we met a pigeon that let us get astonishingly close to it and snap a ton of photos. 

The super cool pigeon we met at the Cliffs of Moher

The pigeon wasn’t the only cool animal we met at the cliffs. As soon as we arrived, we spotted cows roaming the emerald green pastures all around us. When we were walking on one of the trails, we were actually able to get within arms reach of one of the cows.

Cute cow that we met on the trail (it may or may not have peed a little bit while we were there)

On the main trail through the cliffs, there was a historic tower that we were able to climb to the top off. 

View from the tower at the Cliffs of Moher.

After walking around the cliffs for a few hours, I worked up quite an appetite so I decided to stop for a quick snack on the trail.

Me snacking on a stack of rocks at the cliffs (a little too crunchy for my liking to be honest)

After experiencing the cliffs, we ate actual food at McGann’s Pub in Doolin. We were seated outside in a beautiful garden-like area next to a lovely little creek. Most of the people around me ordered the fish and chips meal and we all highly recommend it, but a few other people said the beef stew was also amazing. 

Galway

After eating lunch, we ventured off to Galway on the western coast of Ireland. While we were in Galway we ate dinner at The King’s Head Bistro. Three of my friends and I ordered the Kings Head Blood Red Ale. We all agreed that it was probably the worst tasting drink that we’d ever had. Only one of us was able to finish our ale by the time we left. The fish and chips that I had was extremely good though so it kind of made up for the disgusting ale. 

Couldn’t pass up taking a pic with this random sign in Galway since I still have braces

Saturday Night

Instead of taking the bus back to Dublin, we decided to stay in Galway and take a train back to Dublin a few hours later. We all bought our train tickets the day before so we wouldn’t have to stress about getting them when we got to the train station, but this somehow came back to bite us. As soon as we got in line to board the train we realized the train only had carts A, B, C, and D. However the seats listed on our tickets were in cart E. Cart E was nonexistent. One of the workers on the train basically just said good luck when we asked him what we should do. In the end, most of us had to either stand or sit in the hallway between carts until some actual seats opened up after a few stops. Once we found seats, we played BS and spoons with a deck of cards we had for the rest of the two and a half hour train ride across Ireland. After arriving in Dublin a little after 10pm, we strolled down to the Silver Penny Pub for a few drinks to end off the night.

Hope you all enjoyed reading my blog this week. Until next time! 

Dominick Thornton

Computer Science 

Big 10 STEM and Irish Studies at UCD

[umichenginabroad]

Reflecting on Germany

Hi everyone!

I have officially landed back in the US and been here for a week! Adjusting back after being in Europe for almost 3 months has been tougher than I imagined, but I am so thankful for the experience that I had this summer!

I was able to meet some incredible people from all across the country, as well as people from Canada and Europe. I got to visit 7 countries (Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy, and Luxembourg) and make a lifetime of memories.

If you’re reading this blog and on the fence about study abroad, I would say to jump all in. I was absolute terrified before I left. Even once I got there, I wanted to go home immediately. That’s ok! I found out later that it happened to almost all of my friends for their first few days. It’s a weird experience being in a totally new country across the world with no familiar people but the great thing is.. you meet people! And they will become some of the best friends you will ever meet.

By the time I was packing up to leave Germany, I was a mess. I had the same feeling as before I left- I was terrified to leave Germany and my friends that I had grown to love very much.

Studying abroad is probably the best decision I made for my education- if you’re leaning towards it, just lean all in. You will not regret it at all!

As for now, I’m getting ready to start school in a few weeks and adjusting back to the US life.

Thank you for listening to my adventures for the whole summer!

Grace Whah

Biomedical Engineering

RWTH Aachen

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Final symposium, and farewell to Germany

Hi everyone!

Unfortunately, this is yet another boring blog (COVID edition), but there are some fun highlights!

Sadly, up until Thursday, I was still in quarantine for COVID-19. I was super bummed about this because it is my last week in Germany, but my friends here were so supportive and did movie nights with me / brought me food to keep up my spirits. I am incredibly grateful to have met such wonderful people.

I got out of quarantine just in time for our final research symposium. I am really proud of the research I conducted this summer and I was happy to answer the questions of so many people who were interested in my field. I also got to see the research of my friends and all of the amazing progress they made! Overall, it was one of my favorite days here.

The next few days I had my last experiences in Aachen. I hung out with some friends, visited our favorite food spots one last time, and got ready to go on one last journey through Europe before heading home.

Saturday, my friends and I caught a flight to Milan. We had to wait 3.5 hours in security (airports in Germany right now are so crazy) but we finally made it. The next day we got up at 6:30 am and made the most of our day in Milan even though it was 102°.

Sunday evening, we took a train to Lugano, Switzerland - maybe one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen in my life. We were able to swim in the lake there (so shockingly warm) and enjoy some gelato in each other’s company.

Monday morning, we headed to Andermatt, Switzerland - again, one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to. We were able to hike around the Devils Bridge and hangout before saying goodbye.

Andermatt is where I departed from my friends to head back to Aachen. Many tears were shed from all of us as I went to get on my separate train. I am going to miss spending every single day with them, and I’m really gonna miss Germany, so this was a really hard day for me. But I know I will see them again and we will be friends for life bonded over this amazing summer.

After 11 hours of trains due to some classic Deutsche Bahn delays, I finally made it back to Aachen, packed my bags, and 2 hours later headed out to go to the airport. I’m writing this as I am on the train there now.

I am going to miss Germany terribly. After spending almost 3 months here, I genuinely see my life here and I am absolutely a changed person. I am so much more fearless and do not care about so many of the small things I used to care about. I am forever changed because of this. I will definitely do more reflection in my last blog when I arrive back in the states, but I just had to get that in there. Germany will always have a very very special place in my heart.

Auf Wiedersehen Germany, I’ll love you forever.

Grace Whah

Biomedical Engineering

RWTH Aachen

[umichenginabroad]

My Exclusive Tell-All: Study Abroad in Iceland

Hi blog family,

Welcome to my final blog edition of the summer series. I'm writing to you from my home in Boulder, Colorado, now nine days after departing my temporary home in Iceland. Even though it's been over a week, many of the magical qualities of the trip have stuck with me, so I'm excited to take a peek in rearview mirror and review my six weeks there with you all virtually by my side.

In the Classroom

The first word of "study abroad" is indeed study, and so although I've primarily covered the adventurous bits of my journeys, the time has come to hit the books. The two courses I took were Programming & Intro to Data Structures (EECS 280) and Sustainability in the Icelandic Context. EECS 280 certainly has a reputation at U-M for being a kind of "make or break" course for students in computer science, but my impression of the course is slightly less dramatic. Although squeezed into a near third of a regular semester, I felt that I had a much stronger grasp on some basic programming functionalities than I began with, and the course was appropriately challenging for someone with minimal coding experience beyond ENG 100. There was almost always some amount of "take home" work, but as my colleague Erin has pointed out, the assignments were manageable to get through while collaborating with classmates.

The sustainability course was significantly less work than EECS 280, which strikes a good balance given the constant workload of the latter course. This course covers several areas of engineering topics, including different renewable energy forms, an introduction to thermodynamics, and some real life case studies from Icelandic energy generation. What's special about this class is that it serves as a backbone for many of the program excursions to geothermal and hydropower plants, which gives you can opportunity to see the content in action.

Living in Reykjavik

TLDR: Reykjavik is expensive. Everything in Iceland is more expensive. This doesn't mean it's not worth going.

Housing, excursions, and transportation are covered through the program, which primarily leaves students with the responsibility of paying for their meal and merchandise purchases out-of-pocket. For quick reference:

A realistic weekly budget is probably around $250-$300 USD.

An average meal is $20-$40 USD.

A shirt from 66 North, the premier Icelandic outerwear brand, is $45-60 USD.

With all of this said, there are some truly unique spots in Reykjavik that are only a short walk down Laugavegur Street or elsewhere nearby, so here is my non-exhaustive recommendations list:

Kiki's - great spot for dancing on a Friday night

Perlan - amazing panoramic views, only a short walk from Reykjavik University, and has underrated gelato

Sundhöllin - "public baths" by the program housing which is a true local culture experience

Café Babalú - a quirky but cozy coffee house, also a great place for homework

Klambratún - the local park with super summer vibes during the few sunny days in Reykjavik

Packing List

Even though its the summer, you can pretty much expect one weather pattern on average in Iceland: overcast, 50 degrees Fahrenheit, with a chance of rain. Pack lots of waterproof clothing, not just for the day-to-day but for excursions outside of the city (such as waterfalls) that tend to soak visitors. One thing you won't need: a winter jacket. Although it gets cool, bringing a down coat will only collect dust in your closet, as it doesn't get even close to the temperature range of a Michigan winter. A useful utility for your electronics are power adapters, especially those that are also transformers (devices which can adjust voltage). The voltage of electricity coming out of outlets in Iceland is different than in the US, and so you'll need it any time you want to power up. A final word of advice is that you pretty much won't need any local currency, despite being a common piece of travel abroad advice. Not a single place I went didn't take credit/debit card payment, and in all likelihood you won't end up using any Icelandic krona you convert at the currency exchange.

Final Thoughts

If there's one thing you can take from my blog, it's that studying abroad in Iceland is an incredible experience. If you're looking for a program that incorporates sustainability, is set in a scenic landscape, and exposes you to unique cultural contexts, IPE Iceland checks all three boxes. The main tradeoff compared to other abroad programs is living expenses, but like those other programs, you will have the opportunity to offset those costs through roles like this (become a blogger for IPE!) or through IPE student funding. To put it simply, I have absolutely no regrets about coming to Iceland for my study abroad experience.

I am sad to say goodbye, but hopefully I've given some insight into what living in Reykjavik, Iceland for six weeks looks like. Should you have any lingering questions, don't hesitate to reach out, I'm happy to help!

I'll leave you with a few photos, in case you're not yet convinced about coming to Iceland ;)

Until next time,

Charlie Cappelletti

Industrial & Operations Engineering

IPE Iceland