Mermaid on Land

“The magic thing about home is that it feels good to leave, and it feels even better to come back.” I thought the blog things would just be for my semester abroad, but I’ve realized that I have a lot more to say and that writing has been a really positive outlet for me. I guess I’ll start with a sort of reflection on the last few months. When I first started this blog I named it Mermaid on Land because a mermaid on land is out of place. I thought it described what I was about to experience perfectly…what’s more out of place than an American student studying abroad in a small town in Austria? I’ll tell you what’s more out of place: an American student whose life was changed by studying abroad when she’s back in America, a second semester senior in a 400 level english class when she’s never taken an english class before, an introvert in a class that requires her to take videos of herself interviewing someone else and then present that video to the rest of the class, a New M...