Shopping Local: How to Avoid Becoming a Permanent Tourist

Kelly Knickerbocker – Colgate University, Hamilton,New York

Moving to a different country and attending a new university for the semester has been one of the best experiences in my life, but also one of the most challenging. Coming into this semester, I had very few expectations, but I did know one thing: I didn’t just want to be a tourist, I wanted to make Dublin (and Ireland) my home. Many of my friends who studied abroad previously expressed to me that one of their biggest regrets was that, while they had fun traveling around different European cities, they didn’t spend enough time trying to make their host city their new home. Having never been to Ireland, I wasn’t too sure about how I would make this happen, but I was determined to find out.