#monicanicovic

Looking back at what goals I had for myself at the beginning of this trip, I can confidently say that I exceeded my own expectations. I have definitely grown and changed as a person little by little throughout this trip, and considering that it was ten weeks long, I just kept getting more and more in touch with myself. I’ll start off by saying that my Spanish has definitely improved since the start of this trip. At first I was always nervous to order in Spanish and routinely gave up and went to English, but through time I got more comfortable with pushing myself beyond what I was comfortable with, and managed conversations in Spanish with others. 

A lot of our sanctioned tours of various companies at the beginning of this trip also helped me see how research and careers are different here. In Spain, and in Europe in general, I see that the environment is more laid back and there are definitely more breaks with shorter work days. I appreciated this a lot, because I can only be focused on my work for so long, so this actually helped me be the most productive that I could be. I have enjoyed being assimilated in the culture here by going on Pintxo tours with my friends and listening to live music played at the beach. I have found that I am still indecisive in my path of either biomedical engineering or medicine, but I really enjoyed doing research while abroad, so I guess I just have to keep volunteering at the University of Michigan Hospital and see where I want to go!

I have also developed the willpower to speak to the manager and stand up for myself in situations where before this trip, I would not have done so. I encountered an issue with my room halfway through my trip, and I found myself speaking to the manager and troubleshooting alternative living arrangements. I’m not one to try to make my problem somebody else’s, but this was a case where I knew I had to say something, or else it never would have gotten solved. I’m proud of myself for that, and I am also grateful that I made friends on this trip that helped me out with the problem as well. 

At the start of this program I thought 10 weeks was going to feel like 5 years. While it is true that it ended up feeling surprisingly short, I definitely made five years’ worth of memories in that time. I had to mature relatively quickly to get into the swing of overcoming a lot of obstacles in my path, whether it dealt with research troubleshooting or figuring out how to navigate a Spanish conversation with somebody who didn’t speak English.

Throughout the travelling experience in particular, there were many obstacles that I had to overcome, whether it was the buses being late that affected other travel plans, or complications with Airbnb’s. I’m honestly grateful for some of these situations, just because if I am able to persevere through them, then I can take these learned lessons for the future when I have to “adult” even more in the “real world.” I wouldn't have had the opportunity to learn and grow as much if it wasn’t for this program, and I am grateful for how it changed my mindset. Sometimes when things get really difficult for me, I need some sort of support system in order to figure out how to approach certain situations. Unfortunately, some of the obstacles in this trip didn’t allow for this approach, so I had to learn to adapt and persevere through these situations all on my own when it came down to it. This made me more confident in my own abilities to troubleshoot life, and learn that even if I don’t have access to other resources, I will always have myself to push through.

In order to conclude this research abroad trip (</3), all 12 of the people in our program planned a trip to Mallorca! As hectic as it was to travel around with 12 people, it was honestly one of my favorite experiences on this trip, because we were all able to do something together. We decided to fly with RyanAir because it was the cheapest, but we all had a bit of a backpack scare, because none of our bags were gonna fit in that teeny tiny bag compartment. The fee for an oversized bag was going to be 75 euros, but luckily our flight was delayed 4 hours from takeoff from an original 9:00pm time to around 1:00am!!!!!!!!! Isn’t that great haha, they were kind enough to not check our bags after a long day of waiting! (this was the most annoying thing that happened during our trip). The anticipation was killing us, but after we taxi’d and plopped into our airbnb, we had to make the most of Friday. We explored the Catedral-Basílica de Santa María de Mallorca and the nearby Royal Palace of La Almudaina. At the end of the day from all the walking we were all pretty exhausted, so while some of us went to the beach, everybody else started getting ready for one of the three dinners we had planned for the trip (thank you Sophia for doing what we all did not want to do, and that is make dinner reservations). I noticed with a lot of things on this trip, we were able to be independent yet together, in the aspect that you could kind of do whatever you wanted and explore Mallorca, where we didn’t need to stick together to have a good time. Everybody had different interests while there, and everyone was able to get the most out of their trip. 

Some pictures of the Catedral-Basílica de Santa María de Mallorca (picture on bottom right by Keale Chang).

On the left is the Royal Palace of La Almudaina, and the other three photos on the right are the Arab Baths of Palma (picture on bottom left by Sophia Lustig).

On Saturday we went on a beautiful boat tour, where we had two stops to jump off the boat and swim. The first thing I noticed was that the water was so clear and the most perfect shade of blue. The second thing I immediately noticed was how easy it was to tread water because the water is so salty, where I knew I wasn’t going to drown! There were fish swimming all around us, and we had snorkeling equipment to go and explore deeper into the water as well. It was PERFECT weather and luck couldn’t have been more on our side for the whole journey. By the time our three hours were up, I did not want to get off at all, just because that was the best water I have ever swam in. To be fair though, the only other bodies of water I’ve been in are Lake Erie and the Adriatic Sea.

This is the boat tour around Palma!

We got dinner at another restaurant, where we reminisced on a lot of the memories made on the program throughout our time there. Going around the table and hearing everybody talk about their own personal experiences in the program has let me see how it can benefit people abroad in different ways. More people should absolutely do a study abroad or research abroad program in the future, because no matter what you will have learned something important during your time abroad. For me, it was what I was explaining earlier with overcoming difficult obstacles that didn’t always have an easy solution. I can definitely say that this program has changed my outlook on a lot of things in life, and has made me more involved in the present moment. I don’t spend much time worrying about next week, since each day demands my full attention and allows me to be fully immersed in the moment. Looking back, if I didn’t get the opportunity to do this research abroad program, I wouldn’t have met all these amazing people and learned so much about myself that I can use in my future that will make navigating any obstacles I face in my life easier. Thank you so much for coming along with me throughout this journey, and make sure to tune into one more bonus blog next week!

Just some nice pictures I took!

The only pose I knew how to do on this trip was the rock hand…

Mallorca had really good seafood. I had to get a mini burger too.

Have you ever felt like your burger was missing something? A particular flavor perhaps? I am here to let you know what your mind and body have always been craving and what your burger has always been missing is cotton candy! Okay, I am starting off this blog sounding like a crazy person, but when I tell you that it was like one of the best burgers I have ever had, I mean it. It also had some sort of special sauce that paired really well with it, and it made the sweetness of the cotton candy not overpower the burger too much. Now, how did I even get access to such a burger you may ask? There is an event going on right now called “The Champion Burger” where different restaurants/food trucks are competing to see who makes the best burgers. There were around 26 burgers placed in the competition, and since 7 of us went, we all tried each other’s burgers to see which one might be the best. It was a really fun experience, and it was especially cool because it took place in the San Sebastian soccer stadium. The event is going on until July 27th, so I most definitely will be making my way back at some point again next week. 

These are some of the burgers we tried, with the cotton candy burger on the left. Don’t worry though, I didn’t have to unhinge my jaw too much because the cotton candy filling ended up flattening.

The competition took place inside of the San Sebastian soccer stadium!

This is essentially going to be a food blog this week, because following burger day, we had the opportunity to cook for our mentors and program directors in the Txoko kitchen on the Tecnun campus. We had the kitchen for around 2 hours, where we curated an American style menu. The menu was filled with recipes that people in our program had passed down from their family members, or stuff we found online. It was really fun to just make food with everybody (for the third time, we all love to eat), and have access to an experience where we cooked in a Txoko kitchen. In the Basque Country of Spain, Txokos are private gastronomic societies where friends gather to cook, eat, and socialize. It’s a really nice way to get people together, and it is deep rooted in Basque culture to preserve their culinary traditions. It was a beautiful experience overall, and I am glad that I was able to embrace the Basque culture with a tradition like this.

The chefs are hard at work here with the amazing, delicious, stunning, gorgeous, and perfect food they made!

This was the menu that we presented the meal with.

These are some pictures at a bar we went to where they made custom drinks based on your likes and dislikes! It was a fun experience (but a little bit pricey).

I’ll never tire of the beautiful sunsets at San Sebastian.

After a long week of cooking and eating, we had to burn all those calories off and what better way than with a hike! We ended up taking a path to the right of San Sebastian, where we ended in a small town nearby called Pasai San Pedro. The hike took around 3 hours, but we took breaks to yap and admire the view. So the hiking went from 1pm-7pm. It was honestly really nice, and I wish I had done hikes earlier in the trip, because there is just so much to see here that I would never get to experience back home. During the hike, we also ran into a beautiful coffee stop where the owners offered rest to any travelers. We talked with the man for a little bit, and they have a system where you pay as much as you think the coffee is worth. This solidified for me that I definitely do want to do some type of backpacking trip, specifically the Camino de Santiago. Everybody we met along the road, even though we were just walking for 6 hours, was so kind to us. I don’t think we passed a single person without acknowledging each others’ existence in some way, even if just by a simple hello. We ended this hiking day trip by hopping between pintxo restaurants, where we even got this pintxo served in a sea urchin. I’m going to miss all these awesome views and eats when I have to come back, but I have had so much fun enjoying it and being in the present here. Thank you for tuning into this week’s food themed blog, and I hope you enjoyed the read <3!

Not entirely sure what this is, but it might’ve been a bell tower of some sort? It was seen on our hike (picture by Sebastian Hinton).

Hiking gang.

The beautiful coffee shop that we stopped at along our hike.

Some pretty sites along the hike, there was a lot of old architecture and animals!

Okay viewwwww! (picture on left by Sebastian Hinton).

Following our research presentations, we began to pick up and make some progress with the EMG research we had been conducting. We have been collecting data from different muscle groups and learning about how steady state and active state muscles have variable power spectrums, with a correlation between energy and frequency. I personally have also been doing some experimentation on how mental/physical distractions might affect the strength or pattern of muscle contractions. All of this is really interesting to me, and it goes back to some EMG research that I do back at Michigan.

Budgeting…

What I have realized quickly in Europe is that it is extremely important to budget your money from the beginning. I will not lie, my motto has been “Well I am already here and the biggest expense was the plane ticket soooo” which honestly will only take you so far. I am now learning the consequences of this mindset. Honestly though, not even that upset about it because I got to experience and see so much. I will say, if you are going on a trip to Europe, what you have to consider on top of just booking places to stay and transportation is what your total cost might end up looking like for other essentials, and especially food. Some people might not budget enough for food, so I would always overestimate, because you will want to splurge on it. After all, you are not going to have access to that kind of food anywhere but here. Trust me, you will spend way over that bare minimum, especially when it comes to the overkill level of gelato you will consume. What I would have done differently for this research abroad experience would be to create google sheets and budget better for what I wanted my spending money to be used on. I would give advice, but there a lot of youtube videos online that can do a way better job than me, as somebody who didn’t budget (#whoops). Learn from me and don’t make the same mistakes I did!

This week on July 10th there was a Mongolian holiday, and as somebody in our research group is Mongolian, we went out to celebrate and eat at a Korean Mongolian restaurant! I can’t say I have ever had Mongolian food before, and definitely not in Spain, but it was sosososo good. They put soup in a lot of their doughy meats, and so everytime you bite into it it would literally melt in your mouth. Afterwards we needed a sweet treat, so we stopped by this BOMB gelato place called Helados Pozzetti (see unfortunately I am always getting gelato…). The beach was only like 5 minutes away, so we went to end the day with a beautiful sunset, where obligatory sunset 0.5 pics were taken of course. 

This weekend I decided to relax, and I went to the beach on Saturday to read on my kindle and draw my surroundings. I know I mentioned this in my last blog, but I will reiterate that it is honestly a whole other feeling to just take in your surroundings and attempt to draw them. It was really relaxing and I am grateful to have such quick access to a beach. This has confirmed for me that I sooooo want to live near a beach or SOME body of water in my future. 

This honestly sums up the blog for this week, and as we near the end of our program, I have also been mentally preparing myself to get back into the swing of courses in Ann Arbor. I have officially started to look at my google calendar and process what my schedule is going to look like. With the amount of close all nighters and traveling I have done while abroad though, I am sure I can handle a 7am wakeup for my 8am Orgo class… right? Well that is to be determined I suppose, but I am certainly ready to take on courses as I feel as though this experience has made me a more rounded person. Whether it came to the time management for the trips, or SOME of the budgeting that I did on the trip, I feel ready to take on the academic workload once again. Thank you for reading!

This is taken at the Korean Mongolian restaurant called B Star!

Obligatory 0.5 beach sunset pic.

The Showdown. (picture by Ninjin Dashpurev)

Beach!

We went for a little walk towards the left side of the beach, and there was a nice spot to sit with a beautiful view of the rocks.

This is also towards the left side of the beach as you walk more towards the rocky area.

The start of this week marked the midway point of the program, where we finally had to present the research that we had been conducting. Even though we began our EMG research, we decided to do our research presentation on the NMR machine that we worked on during the first month and a half of our program. We had a research document that we made while we were doing our NMR research, so we had our presentation follow the outline of it. We started with background information on our topic, and then dived deeper into the applications NMR has on the medical field and chemical spectroscopy. We did around 7 experiments with it as well, and went into our findings and results for it. I’m glad we were able to finally share with our mentors and peers all that we have accomplished and learned so far with this program.

This is after we all successfully presented our research!

As it was raining on Wednesday, we decided to go to one of the malls in another smaller town near here to watch the new Jurassic World movie. It was a little bit difficult to find any movies there that were not in Spanish, but since the movie got released that day, they had English audio with Spanish subtitles. Honestly, the subtitles helped me a lot to learn more Spanish. I now understand why people say a good way to learn another language is with different types of media.

An arcade in the mall that we ALMOST bowled at, but it was extremely crowded.

At the end of the week, guess what patriotic day it was. FOURTH OF JULY WOOOHOOOOO!!! We decided to throw a little fourth of July dinner together, where we used the community kitchen once again to make burgers and hotdogs. Afterwards, we went to a karaoke bar and sang for probably around 2.5 hours. What was nice about this place was that for every song we sang, we also got a free drink chip! We sang a variety of American songs, as well as my personal favorite, “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from Mulan. Of course we also had to have Mr. Brightside as well ;). To end the celebration, we got little sparklers, and ended the night on the beach. We even celebrated with some friends that we made here in San Sebastian, so it was fun for them to celebrate and be a part of our holiday. I have loved researching abroad and being able to share our culture with the people here, and also be a part of theirs. It reminds me that we are all human with our own little traditions, and that we all have things in common, even if they are for different reasons. 

Three Americans walk into a grocery store…

This is at the karaoke bar!

Sparklers lit at the beach!

This weekend, as we weren’t traveling around to far places, we decided to go to a smaller local town near San Sebastian called Zumaia. I wanted to go there in particular, because they filmed some scenes from my favorite show there, Game of Thrones. The small beach town was absolutely BEAUTIFUL, and it has totally confirmed my preference for smaller towns over bigger cities. They had such good gelato, and a small little hike up a mountain to see the beach. I tried my best to do a sketch of the beach, but unfortunately I quickly realized I liked the process of drawing more than the actual outcome of the drawing. I am still working on refining my drawing skills, but it is still really fun and forces you to become more enveloped in your surroundings. You notice every tiny little detail, and it made me appreciate the place so much more.

One of two beaches at Zumaia. 

Zumaia, Spain!

Hike completed! (it took like 15 minutes…)

The beach at Zumaia from above, a beautiful view.

Attempting to sketch the beach! (pictures by Keale Chang).

On July 6th, the San Fermin festival in Pamplona begins, so we took an 8am bus ride over there to be a part of the beginning of the festival! There were a lot of people in traditional clothing, with white and small hints of red in their outfit. The traditional pairing that our group did was a “faja” or “sash” that you wore around your waist, as well as a red bandana. The red bandana would go around your neck once the clock struck noon, but before that you would just wear it around your arm or a belt loop. The red color of the bandana represents the blood spilled when Saint Fermin was beheaded, and the white clothing alongside it is a nod to his purity and sainthood. As we squeezed our way past the crowd towards the center of the festival, I had no clue what we were getting into. I brought my backpack (rookie mistake) not knowing what was going to occur. Leading up to the start of the festival, people began to start spraying bottled wine and sangria everywhere, and everybody was suddenly getting hit by wine. I tried my best to cover my bag, while also trying to enjoy the festival. Once it hit noon, everybody started spraying their bottles in various directions, and as much fun as I had, I definitely would’ve brought a different set of clothing!

After the beginning of the festival, we just explored the streets of Pamplona, and enjoyed the overall atmosphere that the festival brought to everybody there. It was really fun to be a part of, and a great way to end the week. Overall, I am happy with experiencing everything that I did this weekend, and glad to be a part of a cultural festival like San Fermin. Thank you for listening to this week’s blog, and I hope you enjoyed it!

Just arrived in Pamplona!

Leading up to noon, everybody held their bandana’s up during the San Fermin festival. (picture by Keale Chang)

Taken in the city center, before the festival began!

Celebrating San Fermin!

With all the walking we were doing, we had to take a little break and rest on the fence (picture by Sophia Lustig).

Would you rather go to Disneyland or Paris? Well I’m here to let you know that both are possible with Disneyland Paris! This week in San Sebastián there is a local holiday, meaning we didn’t have scheduled research hours on Thursday and Friday. So what better way to use our time besides taking an 11 hour bus to Paris! 

I have only been to Disney World once in my life, and it was when I was a little kid. I understand the appeal of taking your kids to Disney, but I quite honestly do not remember a single thing while I was there besides the really long wait times. This is why at the ripe age of 20 years old, I can call myself a Disney Adult, because we did in fact go to Disney as uh adults. 

We got tickets for both the Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios Park, where we once again had ChatGPT route us to the rides that would make the best use of our time. I will say that for somebody who doesn’t love roller coasters, I still had so much fun, and it was an incredible experience to relive as an adult. I got hit with big waves of nostalgia being surrounded by the characters that made up my childhood, and I am glad I got to experience something like this while in Europe.

Disneyland Paris! Also I made a friend. I love Mushu so I had to get the shoulder buddy.

When in Paris, you have to try the macarons. Which is why I felt absolutely no guilt when I dropped 15 euros on just 4 of them. When else are you going to be able to try macarons made by Pierre Herme himself! They were absolutely incredible, and worth the experience, and I even got a tin box to keep!

The famous Pierre Hermé macarons.

Unfortunately, I ended up getting a massive migraine the first day of our trip, but that didn’t stop us from ending the night at the famous Caveau de la Huchette, which appears briefly in La La Land. We didn’t need to make reservations, we just got there half an hour early, and were able to get really good seats. It got crowded fast though, and since it was deep underground, it got hot pretty quickly. Luckily, the music was good enough to distract you from all that, and all the people dancing in the center really added to the vibe. Overall 100/10 experience, I love jazz clubs.

This is the Caveau de la Huchette jazz club!

We carved out a couple hours for the Louvre, but I will say it is somewhere you can stay for DAYS and not realize. I mean that both with the amount of art to see, and also possibly getting lost and never finding your way out… I have never been in a big museum before, so for my first big museum to be the Louvre, let’s just say I was speechless. The first room we walked into had so many statues with stories to tell, and I think we spent an hour just in that room. I could genuinely spend a whole day just in that room, so it was really hard to tear myself from one room to the next, because of the limited time we had. I would absolutely come back here one day, just so I could carve out more time and dedication into learning the art in that museum. 

A really cool statue I liked, and the statue room in the Louvre!

Is that… the Mona Lisa?

While in Paris, we also obviously had to see the Eiffel tower, which I understand the hype for, but there were also so many other pretty buildings and parks in the area that I enjoyed more. We went to the Galeries Lafayette, and pretended to shop in stores like Gucci and Louis Vuitton with all the other rich adults. We went to Parc Monceau, where we were surrounded by both a blend of nature and building art. We ended the trip by going to jardin d'acclimatation, which was a small amusement park, mostly suited for kids, but we were able to ride the ferris wheel where a music band played below us. I loved ending the Paris trip with nature and other attractions.

These are taken at Parc Monceau. (picture on left by Keale Change)

Even though we were able to see Barcelona and Bordeaux in limited time, I would like to say that in Paris, that is not possible. There is soooo much to see and do, and we didn’t even complete most of the stuff we wanted to see. That just means we will have to come back next time to see the Palace of Versailles. 

I had so much fun during this trip, and I’m glad I got to go with such a great group of people as well. We did as much as we could with the time we had, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to see all these places while I research abroad. Thank you for reading, and tune in next time to see how our research presentation goes next week!

Flicked up with the Eiffel Tower. (picture by Keale Chang)

This is the Arc de Triomphe! (picture by Keale Chang)

This is the Notre Dame at night. We went to see it after the jazz club. (picture by Keale Chang)

This is actually taken inside the Louvre, as a pride parade was happening outside. 

Another week goes by, and we are HALFWAY done with the program! I honestly can’t believe that the time has passed as quickly as it has. I feel like I try to pack my days with as much as possible, to make the experience worth it, but then I also find the days going by so quickly as a result. All of this week was met with extensive troubleshooting during our research project (help I suck at coding), as well as impromptu activities. I mostly wanted to use this week to relax a little bit before the big weekend trip, which issssss *insert drumroll*... BARCELONA!!! Now, if you thought that walking 17 miles in a day for Bordeaux was impressive, we are about to do the impossible and get off an 8 hour bus from Thursday night immediately into Friday morning, and go go go.

First though, a lot of my research experience for this week consisted of getting programs to run, and making sure our hardware was set up properly for experimentation. After research most days consisted of either beach, nap, or food. The three things that bring the most joy into my life. There was also a place called Pizza Berri, where we were able to get 2 whole pizzas for like 14 euros, so I highly recommend going there. 

Some pictures of really good food that I treated myself to after research with friends!

The people in my program decided to have a “Taco Thursday” night where we booked our Living Studio’s community kitchen to host.

Now in terms of Barcelona… Honestly the events played out in flashes. What I remember is this

Family Dinner with the people in my program

Catching the 11:30pm bus to Barcelona

Sleeping until arrival

Nonstop moving to see everything we possibly could

Airbnb check-in

Club!

Repeat the non stop moving.

Okay to go into more in depth, when we first arrived there we had to drop off our bags so we didn’t have to carry them around all day. Similar to the Bordeaux trip, we utilized ChatGPT in order to map the best route to see as many sites as we could with the limited time we had there. It was really useful, and we even had time to sidequest and do other things as well. The weather was the hottest it’s ever been since I arrived in Europe, being around like 90+ degrees! We were making many pit stops along the way into small little shops just to be by some sort of AC for a little bit. It felt like traversing a dessert, especially when we were taking turns carrying around a large water bottle for the group’s “rations”. I feel as though it was a requirement, as we walked 75,000 steps in 3 days…

We started the day by wandering through the market and getting smoothies and fresh fruit. We then went to see the Gothic Quarter, where it was really nice to explore since we got there on a Friday morning, and it wasn’t as crowded as it normally gets. We wandered to see Europe’s largest unfinished church, the Sagrada Familia, and got good eats before we decided to go out until 5am, the good old Barcelona way. There is a club here called Razzmatazz, that has five different rooms playing different genres of music. Unfortunately for us, we accidentally booked a night that only played Techno, so there was limited variety in music options. I still enjoyed it and had a good time, but I will say getting on the metro at 5am for the “walk of shame” while people were going to work was a shock. The metro was a mix of both the partying teens and the working adults! 

We also toured the White Rabbit Museum, which is actually a new attraction, created in May of last year. It was really fun to explore, and they had a lot of interesting fun rooms to see that were informative of the History of Catalonia. My favorite room by far was the Esclat room, which was just a mirror art room, utilizing audio to enhance the experience. They also had a VR room, which explained a lot of the Catalan history which was interesting to hear about.

Our following days dealt with a lot of eating and exploring, as you will be able to see with the abundance of photos that I got for this blog. As much as I love taking pictures of sites, I also had to get some photos of myself in them as well (my mom asked for them, you’re welcome mom). Since we were still recovering from a long day of traveling around, we decided to hit a jazz bar called the Harlem Jazz Club, to have a more chill night. They sang a lot of good songs, and my personal favorite, “Just the Two of Us”. They did such a good job with keeping the crowd entertained as well, and the main singer from Virginia and the Woolfs came down to dance with the audience. 

Overall an amazing experience in Barcelona, and I am extremely grateful that the public transit system was so easy to follow. I am not the most adept in navigating bigger cities, but Barcelona made it as simple as possible. I will say though, I am definitely a person who prefers smaller cities, like San Sebastian or Ann Arbor, and am glad that I am doing my summer research program in a smaller city. The bus ride back made me excited to be going back to what I now call “home”. Until the next blog, where another trip awaits!

The Arc de Triomf was the first site we saw in Barcelona, fueled once again by Monster!

This is the Mercat de la Boqueria of Barcelona where we went for a stroll and got smoothies and fresh fruit to start our day.

The Catedral de Barcelona, where I was able to flick up in front, as we went on an early Friday morning.

This is the Sagrada Familia, which is the biggest unfinished church in Europe. It was absolutely stunning to see, and unbelievable to comprehend the size of.

The shops in Barcelona have really nice interiors and exteriors, and this is an example of Uniqlo having a really nice staircase up to their next floor with a chandelier. I highly recommend just window shopping here.

The White Rabbit Esclat room!!!

Also at the White Rabbit, hi my name is Andy.

Me kissing the GOAT.

Moments before disaster at Razzmatazz…

Barcelona has so many parks that you can explore for free, and we made sure to explore as much as we could of Barcelona’s greenery.

TACOS for 1 EURO EACH I REPEAT TACOS FOR 1 EURO. (This is TKO Tacos)

This was taken at Parc de la Ciutadella, which was a free park we explored. (second picture by Keale Chang)

This is the El Born Center for Culture and Memory, which is a free archaeology museum (you can see a trend here, we did all the free stuff)

This is the Montjuïc Castle, and the view at the top towards the water. This was also free after 3:00pm! We went on a Sunday and it wasn’t too crowded.

The view of Barcelona and the Sagrada Familia at the distance taken from Montjuïc Castle.

This is the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya.

This was taken by Jardines de Mossèn Cinto Verdaguer. My friend made a joke saying it was like the yellow brick road in The Wizard of Oz haha. (picture by Keale Chang)

Taken down the stairs by the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. The city sites were beautiful here. (picture by Keale Chang) 

How many times can a girl go to France before she’s sick of it? Answer: Probably 2 million billion.

The blog you have all been waiting for has finally been released at your convenient Sunday afternoon (at night for me as a D1 procrastinator). This week I hope to cover some impromptu travel plans, as well as what it’s like balancing my time with research, traveling, and self care. I’ll also cover some entertainment for you guys, well at least I hope it’s entertaining. Let’ssss get into it.

To start off the second week of research, we met up with our research coordinator and discussed a plan to come up with a final report for our NMR topic, completing it by the end of the week. We went into detail about the background and the various experiments we were performing throughout the week. I’ve overall really enjoyed the freedom we have been given with this project, as there is no time constraint stress to learn new things from questions I ask myself. I enjoy doing research when I don’t have to simultaneously be balancing clubs and courses while at Michigan. I am glad to be doing research over the summer, where I have the time to take it slow. Our professor also wanted us to come up with our own proposed research plan with the resources they have available here. I appreciate that I am able to define my own research project from scratch, and I feel as though I am going to be able to learn a lot by defining my own research question and experiment.

Bordeaux!

DAY TRIP DAY TRIP. After a lot of hard work in the lab, I was able to take a remote day and do work before and after I came back from Bordeaux! I have been wanting to see this city for awhile, especially to see the beautiful cathedrals there. The spontaneous day trip was sooo worth it, and it was only a four hour drive away (aghHHH)! We used ChatGPT to create the most optimal route for our exploration of the city, and honestly 34,000 steps later (17 miles), I can say that I saw Bordeaux in a day. My rankings for Bordeaux are as follows:

People: 9/10 All the people we talked to were the sweetest ever, and there was a girl who offered us free smoothies because we helped her bring her gelato cart inside when it rained.

Transportation: 6.8/10 I would rank this higher, but compared to San Sebastian, there are way more cars in the area, and it’s a bit too busy for my liking. The city is overall really walkable though, like most European cities.

Food: 9/10 Really really good, we didn’t get traditional French food, but we got pasta and their famous canelé.

Architecture: 9/10 SO BEAUTIFUL, like genuinely loved the architecture, the only reason it’s not 10/10 is because it got slightly repetitive, and maybe because we were tired walking 17 miles trying to see it all in a day. (which we DID)

Now, for the “main reason” we went to Bordeaux. One of the people in our program ordered a Nintendo Switch 2 to Bordeaux because Spain had run out of switches, so we had to make that stop to pick it up. So not only was this trip entertaining, but productive! We were also able to see every single important building there, as well as a museum stop, so I would totally recommend a daytrip there if you do the program. Just keep in mind that you will be absolutely exhausted by the end of it.

This is the beginning of our day fueled by monster energy (not sponsored)

LOOK A BELFRY! This is the Grosse Cloche, where I horribly butchered the pronunciation… (picture by Keale Chang)

This is the Primatial Cathedral of St Andrew of Bordeaux.

This was a little hall of stores that reminded me of our very own Nickels Arcade in Ann Arbor.

Naythan and I walked down one of the bigger streets in Bordeaux. We were heading to get his Nintendo Switch 2. (picture by Keale Chang)

A street view picture of Bordeaux, France.

This is me in front of the Monument aux Girondins in Bordeaux, France. (photo by Keale Chang)

I LOVE Legos, hence me incorporating a photo of me on a Lego police bike. I guess I sort of have a thing for them, because this is me in Ann Arbor on another police bike. (first photo by Keale Chang)

Really really good pasta, in shapes I never knew existed. 

In honor of Bordeaux being the wine capital of the world, we had to splurge and each get a bottle of wine. 

This is the water mirror of Bordeaux, where we got really good pics when there weren’t any kids running around in front of it (we camped here for like 20 minutes).

The students of Tecnun

Getting to know the people of San Sebastian has been so much fun and everybody here has been so nice. There was an “end of year celebration” party in our living studio, so we were able to meet and socialize with a lot of the Tecnun students. It was interesting to see how they came from different parts of the world to study here, and that they have all had great experiences here in San Sebastian. Everybody here is very sociable and interested in where we are from, and it was nice to talk to kids our age in a setting like this one.

Some people in our program have been playing basketball and going to the beach with our peer mentors from the first two weeks, and they have been giving us tips on what to do and see here. Overall, I am very grateful to have met knowledgeable people in the area helping us make the most of our time here. We have a couple of hike recommendations as well as cities nearby that would be worth a visit.

Day Trip to Hondarribia 

This weekend we decided to take a day trip to Hondarribia, which is near the border between Spain and France. We had to take a visiting friend to the San Sebastián Airport, located in this small coastal city. It was really fun to explore and look at all the boats here, and reminded me of what I do in Michigan. Anytime there is a marina, I love walking around them looking at all the boat names, seeing if there are any that I would want to own in the future. We walked around some more and got ice cream, while also watching a dog run away from his owner. As it was a Sunday, a lot of the shops were closed so there wasn’t the most to do, but the churches here were also beautiful to explore, and it was overall fun to look at all the architecture in the city. They use a lot of fun colors to decorate a lot of the building exteriors, specifically the railing and balconies.

YUMMY YUMMY FUEL for Hondarribia.

Beautiful sites and views of the water in the small coastal city of Hondarribia.

This was inside one of the cathedrals in Hondarribia.

This is the street leading up to one of the cathedrals in Hondarribia. 

I have to keep in mind that with all this traveling and research, it is important to take mental health days, and on Saturday I had to take a real bed rot break. It takes a while for me to convince myself that this won’t be a big waste of my time filled with regret. Yet, I remember that if I am not fueled up, I will not enjoy what I am doing. It is okay to rest and not overwork your body while abroad!