The Water's Fine

This past weekend I met with some friends from CMU and their family for lunch and a movie. Their family was in town and they very nicely invited me to come along with them. This family has traveled near and far and are now settled in the US after moving from India a few years ago. The husband travels a lot for work and he told me about his experiences in Florence and Madrid. It was nice to hear the perspective of someone who has done business in foreign countries and dealt with the challenges of foreign business cultures. He talked of the markets in Florence and the slowed down lifestyle. He mentioned the knock-off rolex watches and designer handbags that the hawkers sold in the street market. They were apparently the best knock-offs he had ever seen and they were priced accordingly. (Paying 125 euros for a fake watch seems like a bit much, but when you compare that to the thousands needed to buy the real deal it doesn't seem as bad.) Another little fact that he mentioned reall...

For those of you that don't know me, I am a very cautious sort of person. Taking risks and pushing my limits are two things that I simply do not like to do. As a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh I have been given the opportunity to go way out of my comfort zone. This summer, I will be spending 12 weeks (3 whole months!) interning abroad in Madrid, Spain. As of now I have no idea where I will be doing my internship or where I will be living. All I can say is that I am super excited and very nervous to be living completely on my own in a foreign country. Before I go off and live in Europe for the entire summer I am taking a European spring break trip to visit my best friend Lindsay who is studying in Florence, Italy for the spring semester. While this trip will be a number of first's for me, it will be, first and foremost, my first time flying solo. Now don't get me wrong I've been on many, many airplanes across the country and across the world. But I've ne...