It’s 4 a.m. Omani time and I just finished suhoor, a.k.a. pre-sunrise breakfast. With some encouragement from Muslim friends back in the U.S., I have dedicated myself to abstaining from eating or drinking from sun up to sun down, as the whole Muslim world does during the Ramadan holy month.

After three days of orientation, 18 hours on planes, and two hours driving, I am finally in Ibri, Sultanate of Oman!  This summer, I will be studying intensive Arabic (both Modern Standard and Omani Dialect) at the Noor Majan Institute after  being awarded a Critical Language Scholarship through the U.S. State Department.

At home in Des Moines, I drive almost everywhere I go. In Iowa City, I walk more, but maybe only a few miles each day. While living in Prague, I walk around 7 miles every day, and always more when I travel on the weekends. My record in one day is sixteen miles in Paris! My feet do feel pretty destroyed after four months of this lifestyle, but the constant movement and exercise is so refreshing (and helps shed off some of that weekly gelato).

Knowing myself, I should have anticipated breaking my phone. When it happened, I really regretted bringing my old phone or an iPod touch so that I wouldn’t be without a device for a long period of time. Electronics are very expensive to buy in Uruguay and it is close to impossible to get electronics shipped here from the States. It would have been much easier if I had brought one just in case.

One of the main reasons I chose to study abroad in Prague was because of the courses my program, CEA, offered. Anglo American University (AAU) had a vast list of journalism courses to choose from, so I knew that by studying there, I would not only be growing as a person while abroad, but as a journalist too.