Before I left, my peers and family kept asking the same two questions. Why the Baltics? Why Latvia? And, while the uniqueness of this corner of the world spoke to me long before my plane touched down, now emerging from eight weeks in Riga I definitely know my why. Walking through the old towns of Riga, Tallinn, and Vilnius (thanks to Kadri!), trying foods I never knew I could love, and immersing myself in the academic and cultural sphere has been beyond what I could’ve imagined. At Rīga Stradiņš University China Studies Center I researched the foreign and economic policy of small states like Latvia on a global stage, who caught in a web of bilateral relations are attempting to balance moral and economic considerations. Through the help of my mentor Una Berzina-Cerenkova I was able to attend an EU-China relations conference in Brussels, publish an essay on the state of EU-China relations, sit in on talks with various EU officials and China experts, and contribute to research for various annual think tank reports. After so much research, exploration, and learning I could not help but become immensely appreciative towards the delicate culture of Latvia and the Baltics as a whole. Riga was an incredibly warm, bustling city, filled with many park benches I read on and cafes I typed in. It is a city, and a country, I will carry with me long after I’ve left– not just for what I learned within it, but for how it taught me to see the whole world a little differently.