Two weeks into my study abroad, I attended my first ball at the Hofburg Imperial palace. For the past few days, you could hear the rumblings of excitement rising through the halls of the IES Abroad Center as students prepared for their first ball of the season, the Technical Univeristy of Vienna’s ball. Until this night, a ball was something that most of us had only dreamed about or seen in movies.
It’s day five of our Techniques in Marine Research class on the coast of Ecuador, part of me is still excited for our last stop on this journey while the other half of me wants to head back into Cumbaya. I haven’t been feeling the greatest but the last couple of days have been pretty great. We headed out to Ayangue, Ecuador on Friday January 27th. The bus ride was about 12 hours to the coast and jammed packed with activities like sleeping and eating snacks.
This weekend I crossed the Mediterranean to meet up with my friends from home in Barcelona. Spain is one of my favorite countries to visit, even though it always leaves a mess in my head. Since I studied Spanish in high school and its quite similar to Italian which I've been immersed in for many months now, I end up speaking a mix of the languages I like to call Spatalian...
My first official weekend outside of Barcelona was to Tarragona, a Catalonian port city and one of the oldest cities on the Iberian Peninsula in northeast Spain on the Mediterranean Sea. The area gained prominence and historical significance as a Roman colony, which was used as a fortress and arsenal. During its Roman days, Tarragona was filled with fertile plains and sunny days where the area could successfully produce wine and flax in addition to minting coins.
When I have free time, especially with an anime and comic convention a few days away, I greatly enjoy the art of cosplay. Cosplay is short for "Costume Play," and it’s the recreation of a (usually) fictional character’s appearance, and for more dedicated fans, their personality and mannerisms too. Cosplay is very difficult and requires a creative mind and a variety of skillsets, including the application of makeup, sewing, or prop making among many others.
My venture to Barcelona began on an interesting note: sitting at the tarmac for two hours. But what more could you expect from cheap airfares Ryanair had to offer? My friends and I finally arrived at 23:00 (pretty European I know, teehee), but by the time we got to air BNB, all we could manage was a few tapas and paella. The most pleasing of the tapas was the Spanish take on quiche, because it was a thick egg pie that had a surprisingly crispy and light texture for its mass. After a much needed dinner, we all fell asleep.
Tenma-Cho, Nagoya
For my first blog post (technically second, but first since arriving in Siena,) I figured it would be appropriate to wait until I did a lot of the first time adventures. Over the last two weeks, I did a week of orientation, had our first week of classes, and took my first weekend trip. So I am going to tell you about all those experiences.
I am officially less than a month away from the official program start date and the excitement is building.
Before the program started you had to fill out forms for IES Abroad and one of the forms was housing. IES Abroad gives you three housing options, homestay, apartments, and international house. When filling out my form I knew right away that I wanted to stay in a homestay.