Harvey Scholar Travels - Jackie in Spain

Fall 2017 semester I was fortunate enough to study in Madrid, Spain as an exchange student. I picked Spain because I had visited it once before and I absolutely loved it. Madrid is a big exciting city with lots of transportation methods, so I knew I would be able to travel easily which was important to me with my family close by in Italy.

I decided to start my European journey in Italy. I was born there and am still very close with my family there. I stayed a week with my grandmother and spent time with all my cousins, aunts and uncles. Below is a picture of me with two of my cousins at Genova’s port.

The week flew by, and before I knew it I was on a plane to Madrid where I would be living for the next four months. I absolutely loved Madrid. It had so much life. I spent countless afternoons after class just wandering down random streets always finding interesting new stores, restaurants and cafes. Beyond that, I explored the art museums, palaces, and churches in Madrid. I took a class at the university called called “Spanish Culture and History through the Visual Arts” and on weekends I would try to go visit the places we learned about in class with my friends.

Below is a picture of me with some of my friends at my favorite park in Madrid. They were from Italy, Norway and Germany. It was such a great experience being able to make friends from all over the world, because they always had unique perspectives on things I never even had thought twice about.

I took a variety of day and weekend trips out of Madrid where I encountered many incredible sights. I was able to visit Segovia, Aranjuez, Cuenca, Salamanca, Avila, Toledo, Barcelona, San Sebastian, Bilbao and Granada. Below are some of the most memorable photographs I took during these trips.

This is an aqueduct in Segovia, Spain that was built in the 1st century AD.

 

This is the city of the arts and sciences in Valencia, Spain.

This is a beautiful library in “El Escorial” a historical residence for the King of Spain about an hour outside of Madrid.

On a long weekend in October I went to Budapest and Vienna with one of my childhood Italian friends. We met up in Budapest and spent two days there then took a bus to Vienna where we spent another two days exploring the city. We went to a variety of museums and visited all the most important monuments of the cities.

The view from the top of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna.

 

Danube River in Budapest.

I also went back to Italy in November to spend time with my relatives again. Below you can see our Italian version of Thanksgiving with pizza instead of turkey!

I was fortunate enough to take at trip to Paris in December over a long weekend where I explored the city for four days. I spent an entire day wandering the Louvre and another afternoon in the Musee d’Orsay. Paris was magical at Christmas time with all the decorations.

Over the course of the semester I grew a lot as a person. Learning to plan trips and travelling alone taught me a lot about how to be more independent. Each place I visited too had different traditions and ways of acting, which I got to immerse myself in. It reminded me how to important it is to always respect one another, no matter how different we are. Making friends from all over the world was so fun, because even through some language barriers we learned so much about each other and could appreciate and embrace the things that made us all different. I am so incredibly grateful for all the opportunities I had because of the Harvey Scholarship. Fall 2017 semester will be one I never forget.