Dear Readers,
With all the experiences I have had and lessons I have learned, I have decided to publish my story into a book. It will be a hybrid combination of a travel guide and a novel and if you liked these posts, you will love the book.
The main addition to the book edition of Nick’s [...]
It is finally time to fly home. The thought of seeing my family and returning to my old life excites me. Nevertheless, there is a long travel day in the meanwhile. I left my dorm room at 6:30 Milan time and arrived in LAX at 7:30 that night Pacific time. After a cab ride and [...]
My first final was for my Financial Markets and Institutions class. This has been my easiest class by far, and I walked in to the final with the swagger of an easy A. Students were panicking frantically looking through their notes as I sat confidently waiting for the test to start. Why do people even [...]
The past week mainly consisted of studying and preparing for my finals. As I am writing this post, I am over 85% finished with my studying fully prepared for two tests and about and a little more than half way prepared for the third one. I expected to get my studying done several days ago, [...]
I then reached the base of the hill again and crossed the road to visit the Acropolis museum. The Acropolis museum had the largest collection of Greek statues I had ever seen and a lot of the old friezes that were torn off the Parthenon during the Byzantine and Ottoman eras. I then walked towards [...]
A loud car alarm woke me up at 7:30. I tried to sleep a little more, but a hostel mate kept ranting to his friend about how we so drunk that he got lost inside his own hostel. So I got up and dressed at 8:00 AM and began my day.
Breakfast was simple and meager, [...]
Friday night I tried to fall asleep, but I couldn’t. As I was trying to rest, my stomach start to bloat with pressure. Then it grew stronger like boiling pot trying to thrust out water. I also began to heat up and profusely sweat. Then all the sudden, I felt like a had to vomit [...]
Since Roman left, I have not been up to much. It has gotten much colder and I am getting increasingly sleepier during all hours of the day. I now wear my pajama pants under my jeans to avoid freezing and at least three layers on top. It got so bad on Tuesday, that I wore [...]
Country #11 Monaco
Destination # 21 Monaco
After a short ride, Roman and I arrived in Monaco. After exiting the train station, we walked around Monte Carlo. The country is the most densely populated in the world as the wealthy from across Europe buy up properties to escape income taxes. The country is very clean and sophisticated [...]
The day started out with some breakfast at the hotel. As Roman checked out, he was tacked on with a 70 euro charge for having me over for the night. Now Roman knows the European tradition of nickel and diming people. We boarded our train at 11 AM to Nice and it would be a [...]
After having a difficult time sleeping on Tuesday night, I overslept Wednesday morning and did not have enough time to get ready and get to my class that morning. When I got out of the shower, I studied the powerpoint for that lecture until it was time to meet Roman at his hotel.
Roman is my [...]
I woke up Saturday morning to board my train to Levanto. I invited Matt to come with me to the hike, but he had a paper to write, so I headed off on my own. My headphones to my iPod are now broken to the point that I have to fidget with the wiring to [...]
The past few days actually have been pretty interesting. On Tuesday after class, I went to check my reservation for my expected visit to Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper painting on Wednesday. However, when I logged on to site with the reservation, it was gone. I checked through my e-mail records and then clicked on [...]
My time studying abroad in Bocconi has allowed me to travel extensively throughout Europe and North Africa. Based on my experiences, I feel that study abroad serves a better alternative to the classic summer Eurotrip. You can cover as much ground, but in a more relaxed time frame that allows you to truly experience where [...]
Not much has gone on since I wrote my last post. I have gone to class, listened to some podcasts, studied a little, and conducted some financial research. I have also used some of my free time to watch movies: Fargo, Up!, and Where the Wild Things Are. I don’t understand why people like Fargo [...]
The biggest lesson I have learned about myself from studying abroad is my intolerance of cold weather. I know my complaining of sub 60 degree (15 Celsisus) weather has been a theme of my journey, but for some region it really bothers me and hurt my productivity. The weather has been that way (now 40’s) [...]
I woke up at 7:30 the next morning and took a shower. Due to the low ceilings, I had to take my shower sitting down for the first time. Sitting down makes showers inconvenient and more time consuming, so I ended up sleeping in instead of taking one on Sunday morning.
Breakfast was tasty as I [...]
Friday morning was spent getting to the Malpensa airport and flying to Marrakech. It was really exciting, as it was the first time I had ever ventured to Africa or the Arab world. The sky was exceptionally clear so I was able to see the scenery below during the entire flight. Overall, my flying experience [...]
On Thursday I met Matt at the train station to show him around Milan. Matt is in town because he came with me to Morocco this past weekend and we had an early morning flight. After dropping his stuff off (and my Morocco stuff in his suitcase) at a hostel by the train station, our [...]
Saturday was a jammed pack day. The first monument I visited was the Coliseum. Some costumed centurions wanted me to take a picture to them and pay them a tip, but I refused. They asked why I was crying which was strange because I was in a good mood and not crying. I went inside [...]
As soon as I woke up on Friday, I was out of town. I got out of bed, got dressed and hopped right on the train to Naples. After three hours on the train Matt and I arrived to the Napoli Centrale station.
Since there was a little over an hour until we had to catch [...]
Tuesday were Wednesday were spent primarily studying for midterms. On Thursday morning I began my four day trip to Rome.
The train ride was smooth until the train broke down in Bologna. It ended up causing a delay of about thirty minutes. On the way to Rome, and old Italian lady sitting across from me randomly [...]
My last day in Oslo was spent driving up past the Holmenkollen ski jump and seeing the forests surrounding the city. At the top of the mountains, I also saw some nice views of the Oslo fjord and the city which makes the coast have the appearance of a large lake.
For a visitor, Norway is [...]
I planned on sleeping in this morning, but I ended up waking up early anyway at about eight in the morning. I relaxed in the morning writing Saturday’s post and reading ESPN.com articles. I then ate some pancakes for breakfast which were nice to have for the first time since arriving in Europe. I then [...]
I woke up at nine and quickly got ready for a busy day. After eating a quick breakfast, we were off to see the best of Oslo. Our first stop was the Viking ship museum. It had a collection of three well preserved Viking longboats from 800-1100 AD that were found in a Viking queen’s [...]
On Sunday night, I returned from Lisbon back to cold and dreary Milan. Ever since the day before I left to Portugal, the temperature has plummeted. It now averages a high in the low 50’s and the days are filled with dark gray overcast and patches of rain. As someone who has lived in southern [...]
I woke up at 9 AM on Saturday morning to catch breakfast. Breakfast was better than expected. I ate a crepe, some eggs, and had apple juice for the first time since Florence. While at breakfast, I realized I was the youngest person at the hostel by at least five years with most of the [...]
The weeks of work are finally over. Since I will be traveling every weekend six of the next seven weekends, I decided to focus on studies and projects the past few weeks. Milan is not that entertaining or fun of a city so it was not much of a sacrifice.
However, my family sent me a [...]
I have not updated the blog in a while because I have busy with the weeks of work stuff (or just tired and sleepy from always being focused). On Thursday morning, I set up some errands that I needed to do when I return to UCSB when I woke up. I planned on debating my [...]
My progress on projects of the weeks of work has gone surprisingly quickly. I finished my applications to asset management firms and expanded my applications to hedge funds beyond what I started in early August. However, my mother skyped me and told me people were already calling me in the states about these submissions, so [...]
I have now been studying at Bocconi for a little over a month now. I decided to write my overall impressions for the past month.
The Good: The food is great here. As a fan of Italian food before I have arrived, the Italian food in Italy trumps any equivalent in the United States. The only [...]
Today was an ordinary day an went to class. When I booked my train reservation to Rimini tomorrow to go visit the beach town of Rimini and city state of San Marino, I decided to save some money and will be coming back on the same day. As a result, I now have an extra [...]
Destination #9 Lucca, Italy
As soon as I exited the train to Lucca, I was filled with the same homeland feeling that I get whenever I am within the country of Switzerland. My father’s side of the family originated from Lucca and the first American member of my family moved from Lucca to San Francisco a [...]
I boarded my train and tried to lay down comfortably so I could get some sleep. Unfortunately, I could not sleep so I looked out at the scenery as the sun rose. The train went through Genoa, La Spezia, and the Cinque Terre (however, most of the Cinque Terre was not visible due to tunnels). [...]
On Friday I woke up and attended a rescheduled International Monetary Economics class. After class I bought my books for class and then went to the metro towards the central station. On the way, I ran into a street market filled with food and sales on clothes.
At the station, I reserved a seat for tomorrow’s [...]
At 7:30 I woke up for my first class at 8:45 this morning. The weather quickly turned bad and rainy. When I left Switzerland, Milan was hot and humid. Now that I have come back it has switched to being cold and rainy. I went to my first class in a similar room to the [...]
Sunday morning I slept in and ate a large brunch. After brunch I went bike riding with Uncle Marc and Jarreau through Zurich’s financial district, up the river, and to a local carnival. This weekend is a celebration where Swiss teenagers compete for the title of the best sharpshooters in the city of Zurich. Sevrin [...]
After a long night out, I slept in until 10:30 0n Saturday morning. I ate some breakfast, took a bath, and got ready to go hiking. Switzerland is a mountainous country situated in the Alps, which makes it great for hiking.
Destination #7 Pfaffikon and some random mountain in central Switzerland
We drove about forty-five minutes to [...]
I slept in late Friday morning and ate some bread an eggs for breakfast (It’s nice to be eating breakfast normally again). Jarreau was at his last day of his summer job, so my Uncle Marc suggested that we go biking around the city. Sevrin and I unlock our bikes (I use Jarreau’s bike) and [...]
I woke up at 9:30 AM on Thursday morning to get ready to catch a train to Liechtenstein. I picked up some croissants, and I ate them with some eggs that Sevrin made for breakfast. Since Jarreau was at work that day, Sevrin and I went to Liechtenstein for a day trip. At 10:30 we [...]
One thing I like about my dorm is the mechanical curtains. When I want to sleep in I can make the room completely dark by closing these shades. Shades in America are flimsy and always seem to break when you pull on them. They also require you to pull manually with strings that constantly get [...]
Jared actually showed up at around 8:30 that on Friday night. He told me he tried to find me on campus, but then fell asleep before sending me a Facebook message. He dropped off his stuff at my place and went off to dinner. Before going to dinner we stopped at Jared’s hotel to pick [...]
Due to my website crashing, I lost post #1 (didn’t say much), and posts 7-8. However, I had preserved posts 2-5 that cover my arrival to Italy and trip to Florence. At the bottom of this post, I will recap posts 6-8.
Here is an archived recap of Nick’s International Adventures parts 2-6:
Country #1 United Kingdom
Destination [...]