Harajuku is only a little ways away from Shibuya. This is where my prior knowledge failed me. I knew it would be crowded, but to the extent it was left me (sans a few choice words) speechless. For the life of me, I could hardly move. It was like marching with penguins in sync but far less enjoyable. It also didn’t help that many of the places I had been looking forward to visiting, decided to move shop.
In the beginning of the month of March, I was blessed with a visit from Tom and Mary Donahue, my eccentric and amiable parents. They took the long flight from little old Maryland, USA, all the way to Vienna, Austria. As their week long visit commenced, I quickly realized that during that short time period I would become more of a tourist than I had ever been before. I hopped off my plane after getting right back from Venice, dropped my things at home, and immediately ran to my parents’ side.
What an action-packed weekend in the tourist city called Baños. Baños is located in yet another beautiful valley, and underneath a sometimes active volcano called Tungurahua. It's small streets are lined with restaurants, hostels, and tourist agencies, which make any sort of extreme sport that you could find in a mountainous region very easy to access. There is ziplining, bungee jumping, biking, cascading, and much more.
Unlike most semesters, this spring I focused my studies on music. Being a double major, I normally split my attention between music and English, which allows me to learn about my two favorite things at once, but not as intensely as focusing on only one subject. So, this semester in Vienna was my chance to dive deep into classical music, and I ended up deeper into the subject that I thought I could go. In fact, I don't think I will ever think of music in the same way again.
So, first, a note on my last blog post.
In retrospect, I feel kind of dumb about it, because I wrote the thing literally the day of the first practice, auditioned the next day, aaaand didn't get in. So tip to anyone who is interested in playing with the Humboldt: it is possible to not get in.
The hardest part about keeping a blog always seems to be figuring out where to start the blog posts. Reconfiguring and redirecting my experience in Morocco is something that feels so impossible I'm surprised I'm still writing now.
This blog includes a couple pictures from some very different events. One bunch of photos is from a field trip that I went on with my Cultural Diversity of Ecuador class to a town called Salasaca. This town was once considered indigenous, but we learned that much of the indigenous population moved to the Galapagos when the economy was strong there, and a lot of the rest became generally more modernized and forgot about some of the old culture and customs.
