Hi everyone! My name is Alexandra Meringer, I go by Ali, and I am currently finishing up my junior year at Penn State University. I am 21 years old and my major is Communication Sciences and Disorders. This week is the last week of spring classes and I cannot believe how fast this semester has gone by. This summer, beginning May 25, I will be traveling to Barcelona, Spain for 6 weeks with the IES program. I am extremely excited and cannot wait to begin my education abroad experience. I have never traveled to Europe or anywhere far before and I hope to share all of my new experiences with you as I go along. My trip is quickly approaching and I cannot wait to start getting everything ready and begin my summer in Spain! I will be traveling with one of my best friends and also hope to meet many new people and students while I am over there. Hopefully, my best friend and I will be placed in a home stay location and will be living with a great family, who I cannot wait to meet. I will be taking 6 credits in this summer program and the classes I hope to take include a beginner level Spanish course and a course on the history of Barcelona. I have previously taken 4 years of Spanish in high school and 1 semester here at Penn State. I hope to have some time to practice my Spanish speaking skills before I leave and to learn a lot about the language when I am over there!

I am beyond excited to be able to write and share my experiences with my family and fellow abroad students and hope to have many future entries that will help me to remember and document every experience! I hope to include many pictures and insight about the shock of living, studying, and traveling in a new country. I will also try to include some entries in Spanish 🙂

I will most likely be making an entry very soon about packing, getting ready to leave, and the nerves I will be having flying to Europe by myself!

Location: State College, Pennsylvania