The best food of study abroad!

As I continually tell anyone who will still listen to me ramble on about my study abroad experience, one of my favorite parts of country-hopping around Europe was the chance to try some of the regional cuisine. I’ll focus on French food in its own post, because I had so much more time to explore different dishes, so this post will show the delicious meals that stuck with in during my travels to Spain, England, Germany, Austria, Italy, Czech Republic, and Hungary. Bon appetit!

England: Fish and chips

England is known for a lot of things: rainy weather, the Royal Family, accents, rainy weather…but food is not generally one of them. However, an English specialty is (fried) fish and chips (French fries for the Americans), and as I’m never one to pass up trying local cuisine, my friend Katie and I headed to Garfunkel’s Restaurant in Trafalgar Square. It had the appeal of a diner and the fish and chips dish that we shared really made me appreciate that English classic!

Fish and chips at Garfunkels!

9 months: 11 countries, 29 cities.

My wonderful, amazing, cliche life-changing study abroad year is at an end, and I find I’ll like to remember all the places I’ve been lucky enough to visit. So for one blog post let’s explore the trips I’ve managed to take since I arrived in Montpellier on August 17, 2013.

1. France

Cities I visited: Aix-en-Provence, Annecy, Arles, Avignon, Carcassonne, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Narbonne, Nice, Nimes, Paris, Perpignan,  Rouen, Toulouse

From Montpellier to Venice in 9 steps

My first time traveling by myself- besides getting on a bus- was when I got on the plane in Montreal to head to Montpellier and start my study abroad adventure. The second time I traveled alone was during my year abroad when I spent a weekend in Italy with a high school friend. We were coming from different places so I went to Venice alone…and it was so so different from the calm trip I had experienced from Montpellier to Paris and Paris to Montpellier, basically because I had to use 9 different modes of transportation to get from Point A- my host family’s house in Montpellier- to Point B- the hostel in Venice.

Step One: Venture out at O dark 30

My dad always liked to use the military expression 0 dark 30 when we were leaving early on family trips when I was a kid, and that thought was running through my mind. I had to leave my host family’s house before the sun even rose. Since my train left before the first bus started running, I had to walk the 25 minutes from my apartment to the train station in pitch black. It was super fun. (I kid. Although there is something about walking in the wicked early morning that is more soothing than walking alone super late at night. )