Maddie (yes, that's me)

Here it is: the blog you never asked for and I never wrote during my two summers studying abroad.  

(Okay, I did write a blog last summer, but that was for CBA, not personal use). 

Because I don't want to bore you all to death with every detail of both trips, I'm going to share these experiences through pictures (if you do want every detail, I have a journal from each summer that'll tell you all about which clubs are fun, how many naps I regret taking and which people I enjoyed spending the most time with). 

The summer after my freshman year, I spent a month traveling around China. I signed up for that trip on a whim after my original summer plans didn't work out, but I am SO glad I did it. Sometimes I think about it and forget that the whole trip wasn't just a really weird dream.

After sophomore year, I explored Europe for a few weeks before spending a month studying at the University of Oxford. 

*hover over the pictures for captions and click the right side to go to the next one*

The Great Wall (duh)

I'm the clumsiest person I know, so it probably was not a good idea for me to be standing here for this picture.

There were three pagodas somewhere near here

The pagodas aren't pictured here BUT. This is essentially a huge park located near Dali, China. We spent our day climbing a ton of stairs to go through a variety of temples filled with beautiful statues and paintings. 

Prior to this trip, I was trapped in a hotel room with a "5 day hangover," or, stomach flu. I went to a kinda sketchy hospital, where I paid $6 for a blood test and five different prescription medications.

Kaiyi's Kitchen

Everyone's favorite restaurant in Dali. We went here every night of the 4ish nights we were in town (sometimes we went here for lunch and dinner). One night when we showed up, the owner made some people move so we could have our "usual table." I don't even think the food was that good, we just liked that the owner knew us. 

Wow! Nature!

We "hiked" on Jade Dragon Snow Mountain near Lijiang (or like walked on a trail), which was a great break from the polluted air of Beijing and Chengdu, where we had been for the previous two weeks. Shortly after taking this photo, a yak tried to attack my friends and me. 

PUP

We found this dog running around on the street and asked its owner if we could play with him for awhile. I just love it so much.

Yes, I know I look terrible.

Me, absolutely not prepared for this pic or the rain, in front of the Shanghai skyline. By the time we got here, most of our classwork was done and we just got to explore on our own. 

Xiao long bao

My first experience with soup dumplings. My friend Kristen and I got lost for about an hour and a half trying to find this place, where we got 24 soup dumplings for approximately $2. We also didn't know they were soup dumplings so we burned our mouths on them and also ended up sick for the rest of the night. Whoops. 

The Queue

We waited in line for about 7 hours to get into Wimbledon. Apparently, British people just love queuing for things. It was totally worth it, even though I fell asleep watching tennis. Whoops. 

This was also the day after we got into London, so we were jetlagged and not quite prepared to wake up at 4:30 a.m. for the commute across town. 

Prague Castle

After London, we went to Prague. We took a cab to the castle grounds and explored all day until we accidentally wandered back to our hotel. Everything in this city looked like it came out of a storybook and I absolutely loved it.

The hills are alive with ME

Essentially the whole point of this trip to Europe was for me to go to Salzburg and reenact the entire "Sound of Music." I'd say I nailed it.

We went on a tour bus that played clips of the movie we sang along to all day and we got to see all sorts of beautiful scenery from my favorite movie. If a career in advertising doesn't work out for me, I'm moving to Salzburg to lead Sound of Music tours. For real.

i <3 pretzels

This was probably an entirely unnecessary photo to include, I just felt like I needed to admire this giant pretzel one more time. Right next to the pretzel cart there was also a burrito food truck that was surprisingly really good? 

FLORENCE

Italy is my favorite. Probably because of the combination of carbs and high fashion. 

I had been a few other places in Italy with my family before this trip, but I really wanted to go to all of the art museums/eat more pasta.

I spent almost an entire day by myself going to art museums and exploring, and even after walking 15 miles, I was still excited to keep going.

I liked it so much that I decided to spend fall 2017 studying there.

A cüell park

I'm sorry, I'm not funny.

But here's Park Güell in Barcelona, which is covered in cool mosaics designed by Gaudí. 

Barcelona was also great because it was a huge city that also had a beach, which is basically everything I could need in life. Plus tapas. Can't forget the tapas.

Bye going to Hogwarts!!

I made my friends wait in line for an hour so I could take this picture the day before I went to Oxford, which is about as close to Hogwarts as it gets.

Actual studying happened here.

Katlyn and I knew each other through our sorority before this trip, but nothing quite compares to the bond of spending time abroad together. We kept each other sane through the month.

Didn't fall here either!

We took a day trip to see the Cliffs of Moher, where it was extremely windy and I once again risked my life to stand near a ledge to take a good picture. Some things never change.