What a week and a half it has been so far. While it is impossible to describe every detail of my time, I’d have to start with the weather. Sure, Indiana weather is cold and snowy this time of year. I remember a few years back where our a week of school was cancelled because of subzero temperatures and slick roads. That week certainly wasn’t pleasant. So have these past 13 days. What separates the United States from Hungary is transportation. I drove to school, for activities, and for food in the US. That’s not possible in Hungary. A 5 minute drive in Indianapolis here is a 20-minute walk or 10 minute walk with 5 minutes of metro. There’s a consistent wind and below freezing temperatures. All the walking outside means it’s cold. The wind howls around street corners. Streetcars are fans of frigid temperatures. The past few days, getting to class has been a Crossfit class avoiding ice patches and water. I also had a cold early this week. Non-stop coughing and a slight fever followed me throughout my first week of classes, but I’ve recovered.

In addition to illness, the cold has led to two additional consequences. First, due to the cold, I haven’t visited many sites within Budapest. I’ll to partly do this through my Explorations of Urban Space class. Every week, our class will visit a notable site within Budapest for several hours. Second, I haven’t explored Budapest’s rich cuisine yet. There are several restaurants on the street where my dorm is located, varying in poor (a fried chicken sit-down with extremely poor fried chicken) to decent (Pink Cadillac, which serves good, but fairly expensive, California food). But Budapest has a vibrant food scene with cuisine from every corner of the world. With better weather conditions like yesterday, I can experience all cuisines from Chinese to Tex-Mex.

After my first week of classes, there aren’t many differences between Corvinus classes and upper level Kelley classes. Classes are between 15 and 50 persons. Professors assign readings and cases to read the required material before every class. There is an emphasis on cases and experiential learning, and frameworks are used to understand complex materials. The most striking difference has honestly been the lack of homework. In most Kelley classes, there’s usually an assignment after class one. Though the class timing is different (all classes but my Intro to Hungarian class are on one day a week), there have not been any homework or take-home assignments. While it is welcome since I will be travelling this weekend to Amsterdam, I’m curious how well I’ll retain information from week to week. Every class has a heavy emphasis on midterms and final exams or projects, so I’ll be sure to work extra hard in classes to retain information.

Even with the weather, I’ve enjoyed my first week and a half in Budapest. My fellow classmates have been great companions navigating living halfway across the world. I’m thrilled to be travelling with some of them these next few weeks across Europe. Even though it has only been 13 days, I count many new IU and MSU persons friends.

Travel review: Bratislava

This past weekend, I traveled to Bratislava, Slovakia, for the day. Bratislava met expectations. The biggest sightseeing attraction was a great castle in town which was recently rebuilt. The origins date back thousands of years, and the design plus the backstory on Slovakia piqued my interest. Besides the castle, the town was…disappointing. Besides a few modern skyscrapers, the buildings are only a few stories high. Bratislava was also even colder than Budapest. With 30 min+ walks from the train station, and another 30 minutes to reach the castle, the town lacked a distinct personality. While enjoyed my visit to Bratislava, I don’t have any desire to return.

I’m currently sitting in the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. It’s 9 AM. For those of you who don’t know, I left today, January 21st, to study for my next semester at Corvinus University, located in Budapest, Hungary. I’ll be taking a variety of classes and touring Budapest and various other European countries.

But why am I doing this? There are many reasons to stay in Bloomington. Faster graduation. IU basketball games. Little 5 week. Friends. These all tie back to a single theme: familiarity. While a semester at IU brings new and exciting adventures, there’s an overwhelming sense of familiarity. There’s a set routine, where weekends repeat themselves and classes blur together. This certainly isn’t negative. With a stable base, one is afforded peace and comfort. A semester in Budapest? Nowhere near the same. I know no restaurants, no routine, and only a handful of fellow students in the same situation. This is frightening.

Yet, its also extremely exciting. Fear propels to new heights. I embrace the challenge of simply interacting with my surrounding college and city. Budapest contains 1.8 million people, and I look forward to interacting with as many as I can.

I’ll post at least once a week, and I can’t wait to share the most interesting, insightful moments of this trip.

Today, Apple is expected, accoring to a report from the Wall Street Journal, to launch a revamped iTunes Radio, with backend from Beats Music and curated channels from artists including Drake, to compete and hopefully minimize Spotify, Tidal, and other streaming music services. Apple Music seems preordained a smash hit by media outlets and eager consumers alike. But besides Apple’s magic touch, what unique features will make Apple Music different from current offerings? There isn’t much, feature-wise, that Apple can do to differentiate from other services: music streaming is practically the same whether on Google Play Music or on Tidal. However, there are a few features that I haven’t seen mentioned that could provide Apple Music strong legs up on the competition.

The Beatles

The most popular band of all time is now almost impossible to listen to. One has two options to listen to these songs without traveling to a CD retailer: find a high-quality, likely illegal rip of the album on YouTube and play it back, or purchase songs and albums…through iTunes. One would think Apple would want to have all songs currently in the iTunes Store streamable, and getting the Beatles as a part of the service would be a major coup for the service, especially in attracting older persons. According to “The Infinite Dial 2015” report from Edison Research and Triton Digital, only 9% of people ages 25–54 used Spotify in the month the survey was taken, and merely 1% of people 55+ used Spotify.

The One Playlist

To listen to music, I am forced to currently use two apps, Spotify and iTunes. Both serve an essential purpose that the other can’t adequately complete: Spotify is used for streaming, and iTunes is used for non-purchasable items, like remixes. But each currently can’t properly handle the other’s strength: iTunes can’t stream, and while Spotify does support local files, the implementation is confusing and difficult to get to work on mobile. I have followed the step by step guide multiple times, and sometimes songs will sync, other times, no dice. Thus, a unified Apple Muisc app could easily solve this issue effectively.

Louis Vuitton Resort 2016

Ghesquière has fun in Hollywood

Seeing the Resort 2016 collection from Louis Vuitton for the first time, one characteristic immediately struck me: contrast. Not through color, as contrast is typically associated with, but through texture. A little background on the collection first — Nicolas Ghesquière was inspired by the architecturally striking Bob Hope Estate, stating he loved “the idea of sweet and hard at the same time.” Sweet and hard, an idea seen in every piece of his collection, was applied frequently to maxi skirts, constructed loosely fitting with a fluid sweeping movement, and tops fashioned entirely out of leather, or leather straps and accents to give them a structured, rigid look — contrast.

What We Like

The ensemble shown, while reminiscent of Coachella, fully embodies the idea of “sweet and hard.” A leather top adorned with tassels at the hem perfectly blends with the “sweet” movement of the white skirt.

In this look Ghesquière exhibits Louis Vuitton’s leather-working prowess in a masterfully constructed jacket paired with a fluid black pant.

Dior Resort 2016

Raf Simons bathes in the French Sun

Dior’s 2016 resort collection was shown at Palais Bulles (Palace of Bubbles), which even today is a sterling example of futuristic, playful design. The clothing reflects Palais Bulles’s nature, yet harkens to the essence of Dior. The ideals of the “New Look Collection” are certainly on display here, with many pieces sporting a nipped-in waist, and the return of the classic Bar jacket was yet another ode to antiquity. Yet, the variety of material choices for the collection, from sharp leather dresses to tweed coats, makes this collection something to be expected on Raf Simons.

What we Like

Besides skirt length, a piece like this could be in a Dior collection from the 1950’s, to today. Nipped waist, simple frills, timeless.

This knitted dress calls to the sands of Southern France, which was an inspiration for the collection

The fully knitted look speaks to the level of precision of the collection, yet stands out for the lack of excess elements.

In a comparison of two of anything, there a clamoring for better. A winner. A definitve to take away. Both of us preferred Dior, yet, both collections were strong showing, highlighting both the elements that make each house iconic and the designers that currently steers each house’s creative whim. Thus, to say Dior was a winner would be an injustice, for it would degrade from the overall beauty of both collections.

A Tale of Two Fashions was originally published in LookLike Offical on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.