Before leaving for the Azores, I had a really hard time leaving my family because it was my first time leaving the country without them. On the plane, I didn’t do very well because I got sick. It was not a very pleasant start to the trip to say the least. I really appreciate the group of people I was with because already they were so caring and made me feel better about my little “incident”. After the five-hour flight, we finally made it to Ponta Delgada where it was 6am. The time difference was a killer because they are four hours ahead of the US. We were all exhausted and just wanted to sleep. But instead of sleeping, we only had a short break to get a little bit of breakfast until we had to meet at the University of Azores for a lecture. The first lecture was about the culture of landscapes in the Azores and the historical gardens that can be seen throughout the Island. We had another short break and then began our second lecture. This lecture was about the Architecture of Ponta Delgada.