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Currently, I am on the IES Abroad European Union Program in Freiburg, Ger-many. Freiburg is a small, beautiful city in Southwestern Germany right near the bor-ders of France and Switzerland (so close that last weekend I took the train into France for only 5 Euros!) For me, Freiburg is a perfect compromise between the atmosphere of a small, tight-knit community with the advan- tages of a modern city—dependable and easy public transportation, nightlife and music events, and plenty of restaurants, cafes, and bakeries to indulge in.

At the IES building right down-town, I take classes with sixty other Ameri-can students from all over the country. And while our classes are strictly with Americans, each of us shares a flat with anywhere from one to six German students. Nearly a fourth of Freiburg‟s population is students, so Freiburg offers many university-held events and cheap places catering to younger people. Through my flatmate, I have had the oppor-tunity to meet tons of German students, to learn the city‟s best spots, and to better un-derstand German culture—even with my lack of German language skills! I especially love the neighborhood I live in here— Vauban—a unique “environmentally con-scious” community in which some of the buildings are energy neutral and most of the inhabitants have agreed to stop using their cars. There are tons of parks nearby, locally owned stores, gardens, and a farmers market every Wednesday held a thirty second walk f r o m m y a p a r t m e n t d o o r . IES European Union offers a range of politics, history, economics, and busi-

ness classes, each of which focuses on a dif-ferent topic related to the European Union. My favorite class, the European Union and the Muslim World, scrutinizes the EU‟s relationship with both the Middle East and with the Muslim peoples of its own member states. While I didn‟t need to know any German before arriving in Freiburg, IES lets us take German language courses, and even my basic 101-level class has helped me to progress to a point where I can manage Germany on a day-to-day basis. While I absolutely love living in Freiburg, the best part of the program has

been the built in field-study trips that we take. For over 24 days in the semester, we travel to EU member states and meet with journalists, politicians, and policy advisors to better understand Europe and the EU as a whole. Not even halfway through the se-mester, I have already travelled with the program to Berlin, Prague, Strasbourg, Luxembourg, Paris, and Brussels. This past week in Brussels, my EU and the Muslim World Class met with a Turkish Foreign Relations Delegate and got to grill him on Turkey‟s complicated relationship with the EU. IES also understands our desire to ex-plore the city on our own, and so we have a fair amount of free time to wander on our own and experience the local foods, sites,

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challenge them and refute their arguments if we could. The discussions with the authors over wine and cheese and at various restau-rants around the city not only taught me to think like a French aristocrat, but to wine, dine and dress like one too. Except for the occasional embarrassment (my glass of Bor-deaux splashes over a white wall, waiters panic…) those dinners will stand out in my mind whenever I think of Paris and my time away from Skidmore.

But it is also the smaller details of my routine that I remember. I often woke up early enough (or went to bed late enough) to walk to the boulangerie on the corner and eat a fresh baguette or croissant. I couldn‟t ride the metro to class because the unions were on strike (“bienvenue,” my host father said). I said “pardon” practically everywhere I went. I unhesitatingly intro-duced myself, cheek-to-cheek, kissing and receiving others.

Meanwhile, I‟ve said little of my host-family, who from day one consistently spoke French and were consistently misun-derstood. Nor have I included trips to Fon-tainebleau, Versailles, Normandy, and long weekends spent with comrades and friends. Also missing is a description of the 19 th cen-tury architecture, the Parisian shops lit up during Christmas, and the all-too cliché romantic encounter, but I suppose you‟ll need to see for yourself.