I’ve already exhausted my one Britney Spears joke for the semester, but here I am at a crossroads. The whole matter is weighed down with a grim awareness: perhaps for the first time in my life, this...

Don’t go see Moulin Rouge. Sorry, perhaps that was a bit negative. If you’re into decades-old themes about deifying the penis, and if you love seeing white people pretend to be races they once colonized,...

Let me make a nice blanket statement here: Europe is not better than the United States. As I’m sure many of you already know, attempting to rank countries by some metric of “goodness” is about as...

“This meal is life-changing.” We’ve all said something like this before. Ours is a vernacular of hyperbole, and anything remotely above average skyrockets to a transcendent experience. I know I’m...

I did it. I am assimilated. Je suis français. I have forsaken my country in a way that can never be forgiven. I have turned my back on the Stars and Stripes, violated Lady Liberty's dignity. The customs...

While away on vacation, something finally close to autumn back home arrived in Paris. Unfortunately — and to my surprise — the changing season is driving a searing knife of sadness into me. For most...

MADRID -- Memory, especially unintentional memory, is an intensely powerful phenomenon. I'm in Spain for fall break, which couldn't have come any sooner. With the seeming omnipresence of school over the...

Let me share with you an inconvenient truth about the act of studying abroad: you are still the same flawed person, even in another country. Wrapped up in this is another truth, albeit one more universally...

At this point, I’m aware that the “misadventures stemming from language barrier” formula is a bit tired, so I will try, dear reader, to bring you some fresh insight. Not this week, however. This...

I got a haircut in Paris, and it was a trying experience for me. I know what you’re thinking: “We get it. You’re an average college student in a different country, and you don’t speak the language...

I can now happily announce that I have been awake to see the sun rise in Paris. Now, the circumstances of said event were not the most romantic nor reflective. No, I think the proper word to describe...

As the topaz lights of Paris retreat into a nocturnal summer, the sun also rises over the brick landscape stretching from behind my balcony. And on that balcony hangs a flag: the grey flag of resignation. The...