Justin Bishop's Story
My international artificial intelligence program through Nova Scotia Community College - NSCC and Algebra University in Zagreb, Croatia was an amazing experience.
My instructor Boris Agatić is a blockchain software developer and entrepreneur. His blockchain module was among my favorite topics we covered. This module inspired me to plan out a global bitcoin crowdfunding platform idea that I will continue to code up this coming school year in my IT - Programming education with NSCC in Nova Scotia, Canada.
I spent 3 weeks in Zagreb, Croatia, 1 week in Zadar and also 1 week in Trieste, Italy. Along with learning with my 75 program mates, on weekends I took short trips to wakeboard in Maribor, Slovenia and visit the parliament building in Budapest, Hungary. I also decided to take one week solo and head to Italy after the school program to visit the closest Italian city I could find, Trieste. The learning was fun, but the people that I became so quickly connected with during such a short period will be my favourite memories from this experience.
Each country had a group of students that formed friend groups in their own nationalities. The French hung out together, the Germans hung-out together, the Mexicans hung-out together, the Americans hung-out together. I just floated around and chilled with everyone.
I met friends from Brazil and went wakeboarding in Maribor, Slovenia. Then I had a friend group of French, Germans and Americans and took a trip to Budapest, Hungary to go clubbing till 7am and see the amazing parliament building which was lit up at night along the Danube river with a boat tour.
After the school program I went solo to Trieste, Italy for 1 week and met a Dutch guy named Joost who was in the same 12 bed dorm room as me. We became friends and I quickly landed in another big friend group of Dutch and Germans.
We often grabbed some bottles of wine and went down to the harbour. We would sit on the docks and drink wine till the wee hours laughing and bullshitting about whether it is suicide or not when a male black-widow spider is killed by the female mate after sex. Would that be suicide or would that be known? Or maybe the male wanted to die but thought hey, why not get laid at the same time.