This picture was of me on our last day at Lake Atitlan, June 5th. Looking back on my month abroad, I experienced so many things: good and bad. Let’s get the bad stuff over with first. I managed to contract a parasite, a virus, and a bacterial infection all in my stomach 4 days before this picture was taken and I wasn’t feeling the best. Feeling sick abroad is a lot more uncomfortable than when you’re in the comfort of your own home, but luckily the UT staff that were with us were extremely kind and helpful during this unfortunate experience. Now for the good: I still had the best time ever on all of the excursions and learned so much about the Maya, gaining a new perspective on life and valuing simple things I never really thought about. So many people in the places we visited were so happy to share parts of themselves and their identity with us and the geography as we traveled across Guatemala and Belize was insane! Seeing how different Maya urban populations adapted to and interacted with the environment around them was so interesting and it was the focus of my research throughout the program and the research I did now makes me view urban development with a whole new perspective.