6:45am: It is Saturday. There is literally no reason to be up. Unless you garden early to avoid the sun, or are purely an overachiever, there is no reason for a college student to rise out of bed before the sun climbs into the sky on a Saturday. However, today I am an overachiever.
“Compassion can be put into practice if one recognizes the fact that every human being is a member of humanity and the human family regardless of differences in religion, culture, color and creed. Deep down there is no difference.” -The Dalai Lama
Tous Restaurant was one the best happy accidents that have happened to me so far in Paris.
We had to leave mainland Ecuador after spending just one month there, but we all knew that there were plenty of adventures awaiting us in the Galápagos. We landed down on the airport’s landing strip just meters away from the Pacific Ocean, and then the flight attendants sprayed a mystery aerosol on the luggage overhead. Everything we did on the first day in San Cristóbal felt so surreal.
Amsterdam has been my home for nearly 2 months.
SOS: I am a freshman again.
Two years after my initial freshmen orientation (and one year after being on the other side of it as an RA), I am again in the same position of attending well-meaning, if a bit forced, social events, getting lost in the (admittedly small) campus, and making the acquaintance of so many people whose names I will inevitably fail to remember.
I can’t believe it’s been a couple of weeks since I last wrote; it has been so busy with settling into my classes both at IES Abroad and at UVic as well as my internship. While many people that I know have travelled to different countries on the weekends since being in Barcelona, I have been taking my lack of planning for trips to get to know Barcelona and its culture.
As our journey through Asia continued, Natasha and I continued to make our way to Tokyo, Japan. From Singapore, we took a 7-hour flight directly to Tokyo. Once we landed, we grabbed our bags and headed out to find a cab.
I finally ventured outside of Spain!!
Since deciding to go abroad I knew I wanted to see as many countries as I could in the four short months I had in Europe. As soon as I heard that my friends Cynthia and Emily had signed up for a half marathon in Lisbon I knew I had to join in.
I expected it to be a normal, relaxing trip to another country where I'd do some site seeing and have fun and though most of my trip was like this there were still some not so great moments.