London Study Abroad

Before I went to Philadelphia last summer, my public transportation experience was limited to the school bus in middle school. I have lived in small towns for most of my life, so my mum would drive me to school and we would drive to the grocery store, the public library, etc. Last summer I visited Philadelphia with my grandparents and we rode the bus and the subway. I thought it was so cool because I had never experienced anything like that before. Even living in Provo, where the bus and the tracks are readily accessible to me, I still drive everywhere because it’s more convenient. In London, the only times I was ever in a car was the Uber ride to and from the airport. We rode the tube and walked for all of our transportation in the city. In fact, the first thing we received when we got to the center were our sheets and our Oyster card. Covent Garden One of my first times riding the Tube.  When I tell people about my experiences during this study abroad, I mention the m

I’ve always loved Jane Eyre. I thought she was wonderful, kind, independent, smart, talented, and brave. I read the book and watched the BBC movie and thought about what it would be like to live on those moors, with all the open space and the huge, dimly lit stone house. When I went to Northern England, I saw the same things Charlotte Brontë did. I saw the same streets, the same trees, the same moss and I, Aliana Schaeffer, stood in that woman’s very home, where she walked and lived and ate and laughed and I stood in the same room where she sat down and wrote, by hand, (because there weren’t lovely things like laptops yet), my most favourite book in the world. How could I not cry? I may not love camping, but I love nature. I love finding caterpillars and worms and I love waterfalls more than most things. I love being in places I feel fairies would be and I collect rocks, not so much because I like or want to, but because I feel an irresistible urge to have them an

The first time I bought a Mozartkugel I paid 1.75 euros. It was our first night in Salzburg and we had successfully ate at Burgerista, where I had accidentally started crying from the stress of traveling and lack of food and water throughout the day. We were walking back to our hotel from the restaurant, admiring the shops lining the road and the mountains cloaked in twilight in the distance. We passed an ice cream shop, and we stopped because we wanted to get the novelty ice cream dish, Spaghetties. Spaghetties is vanilla ice cream shaped to look like noodles with strawberry jam on top to look like tomato sauce. Unfortunately it was too cold and they did not have the spaghetti ice cream, which was okay because we were still very full from our dinner. Instead of buying the ice cream, Olivia, Katie, Abbie and I each bought one of the small chocolate balls covered in blue and silver foil. We did not know specifically what the Mozartkugels were made of, but we knew they were chocolat

Because I was in Paris this past week, I’ll begin my blog post with a pun I heard a girl in my 11 th grade French class say: What do you call a terrible Thursday? (Pause) A tra-jeudi! (Ha ha ha.) I’ve always thought that pun was pretty good, like I’ve always wanted to learn French. France has always been this glamourous, alluring, elusive place that was so, so far away, and this past week I was actually there. Similar to London, it was interesting to actually be at these places that I’ve thought about my whole life and see how they are in reality versus how I thought about them for years. I remember when I was in middle school and this lady who went to my church said she went to Paris and was like, “It’s eh, it’s really dirty,” and I was a like, “Umm, how dare you say that, it’s Paris.” I’ve always taken offense when the first thing people say about Paris is that it’s dirty. I re-read the first line that I wrote and it