DECIDING ON WHY I WANTED TO STUDY ABROAD IN AMSTERDAM

The Study Abroad program at Loyola University Maryland was one of the few reasons I chose to attend. Having an opportunity to travel for an extended time, for almost the same price in tuition is something I knew I wouldn't be given the option to do again. I come from a family with immigrant parents, so traveling for joy was a luxury I knew I was being presented with that they never got. They were the people who convinced me that I could make it through being almost 10 hours away from home.

 

I love learning about different cultures, and I love food more than I should admit. So studying abroad was 100% on my radar, and I knew I needed to plan ahead. My first step was asking myself the hard question: where do I want to go as my "home base" country. I needed to be smart seeing as I planned to travel to many countries over those next 5 months. 

Growing up, I had always wanted to see New Zealand, Australia, and Greece. And of course, those 3 countries were always options, but none were where I ended up. My family is spread all over the globe, having some aunts and uncles in Switzerland, England, Canada, and funny enough Australia. But, my final decision wasn’t made on either family or dream destination: it was location. 

The Netherlands, the city of Amsterdam specifically is what I chose as my number 1 program. It was geographically close to many cities I planned to visit, it wasn’t a city I heard a lot about tourist-wise, which intrigued me, and I wanted to completely immerse myself in a location in which I knew nothing about. 

                                                

I am so glad I went with this decision, because Amsterdam was even more amazing than I had imagined, and now I have plenty of stories to tell about my travels. I made some friends that I don't think I would have been fortunate enough to cross paths with beforehand. I don’t want to give too much away in this first blog, so I’ll end off by saying, I had no idea what was coming my way! Thanks for reading and I will see you in the next blog!