HC Abroad: New York, New York

Hey Collegiettes™! My name is Kylie Sago, and I am a rising junior at Georgetown studying English, French, and Spanish. Here's what you need to know about me: I hail from Washington state and I love foreign languages, writing, cities, good poetry, funny people, walks on the beach and clichés, apparently.

Pursuing my love of all things French, I will be spending next year abroad in Lyon. But before I can fall in love with France (as if that hasn't happened already!), I am spending the summer in New York City, working full time at a magazine internship for Good Housekeeping.

Spending this summer in New York has taught me a few things. Firstly, this city is magnificent (as I will tell you in later posts). Secondly, I don't explore the cities I live in as much as I should. For the past two years I have been living in D.C., the nation's capital. For a good while I made the effort to get off campus and explore. But then school happened, and life happened, and I stopped carving time out of my schedule to take a look at the city in which I lived. Consequently, my knowledge of D.C. after two entire years practically hinges on my local haunts around Georgetown, with a few other locales mixed in. 

Hazarding a guess, I would bet a lot of college students have similar experiences. I, for one, want to change my attitude toward the cities where I live.

To say the least, I plan to spend my time in Lyon differently. Even though I will be a full-time student in a French university, I vow to really know Lyon by the time I leave. I have promised myself I will have a list of places I can call my own—my corner bistro, my pâtisserie, my bench at le parc (you get the gist of it). By the time I board the plane to come back to America, I will be able to call Lyon my city. 

So here's my proposed plan: I am going to treat my time in New York like a study abroad experience. I will make the effort to see the sights, to find the hangouts, and to do as New Yorkers do. By the time I leave this city, I will be able to say I really lived here. 

Follow me through the rest of the summer in New York and next year in Lyon!