#this is nyu

[maggieinshanghai]

Professor Moon took us out to dinner and showed us around Seoul! Best professor ever! 

[boiled-berlin-blog]

August 26. Sanssouci was the “summer palace” of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. One can only imagine where he spent the other three seasons.

[maggieinshanghai]

I met up with a GAF from NYU Shanghai who now works at Yale NUS for dinner at Arab Street in Singapore! Such a fun place and beautiful! Singapore has such an interesting melding of cultures. 

[maggieinshanghai]

This is the dorkiest and most fun museum I have been to! It’s called the Trick Eye Museum in Seoul, South Korea! It has little scenes you can pose in that give the illusion of something else. Super fun. 

[okayake]

One third clear. One third cloud. One third sea. 

Lisbon, Portugal | November 5, 2016

[natalie-in-paris-blog]

Halloween in Europe!

Though I am head over heels for Paris, living in France has truly shown me just how much I LOVE America. Iced coffee, buttermilk pancakes, semi-respectful drivers, public water fountains, free bathrooms, English… I miss it all. And it only hit me after being here for two months. But the entirety of October had me missing one thing more than anything else: Halloween. 

I’ve always been aware of the fact that Halloween is pretty much exclusive to America, but every decorated window and pumpkin I saw here had me going crazy. Just the mere sight of orange streamers from across the street made me feel ecstatic. My mom sent some spooky window stickers in a care package, and I went to town decorating mine and my friends’ windows that face the street.

It’s funny how much I wanted people to know: I’M AMERICAN, I CELEBRATE HALLOWEEN! When I first arrived in France, I wanted nothing more than to blend in and become Parisian as soon as humanly possible. But now that I’ve settled into the French life, it’s become clear to me that I don’t need to pretend to be Parisian when I’m clearly not.

Deciding to embrace our (amazing) American holiday, my friends and I scouted out the spookiest place in town to visit. Obviously we chose the Catacombs, with miles of dark, centuries-old underground mining tunnels filled with bones of the deceased. It was actually way creepier than I anticipated, and we ran through the tunnels squealing. It was basically a haunted house.

The same day, the RAs hosted a Halloween party (bless their hearts). My friend Kyle and I arrived donned in our Hogwarts’ garbs, but we sadly lost the costume contest to a ten year old girl in a witch outfit. Not salty because she was cute (and Eugene’s daughter), but still totally salty because prizes.

On the actual day of Halloween, Michelle and I were in Venice for Fall Break. We were surprised to see groups of small Italian children running around in capes and masks carrying orange trick-or-treating bags. While eating gelato and watching kids run around us and trade candy–and after running into a few other NYU students (small, small world)–we were inspired to seize the day (night?) and dress up for Halloween. We raced back to the hotel and picked apart our makeup bags, looking for anything that would aid us in creating costumes. Finally settling on vampires (because Twilight and Italy and Volturi, duh), we went out looking for pizza and gelato. Yes, gelato, for the second, if not third time of the day.

The looks of utter surprise we received from people on the streets was truly amazing. We bonded with others who were dressed up for the night, and it seemed like all the Americans on that freaking tiny island could sense each other. Spidey senses or what?

After that night, I finally realized where my seemingly out of the blue American pride came from. In Europe, or anywhere abroad for that matter, it’s like we’re all a part of the same secret club. We’re all foreign and we all miss home in one way or another. Which is why we all end up at Chipotle. Because no matter what kind of American you are, you are bound to miss burritos, and you will eventually wind up at their front door, looking for chips and guac.

[bassistofeurope]

Perks of living in Laf: late night river walks 🌃

[okayake]

A boat hidden in the flowers. 

A canal in Amsterdam | Amsterdam, North Holland, The Netherlands | October 28, 2016