This semester I'm enrolled in a French Gastronomy and Cuisine class here at IES Abroad, with a fantastic professor. This class focuses on various aspects of French food, like wine, cheese, regional specialties, as well as the history of French dishes and ingredients. We've even learned proper French etiquette. Throughout this semester, we've had wine and cheese or aperatif pairings, wine comparisons, learned how to properly taste a wine, and tasted other random foods. Honestly, this has been one of my favorite classes here.

On horseback, me and several other abroad students arrived at Quilotoa. Through a small town that is completely dedicated to tourism, we passed by hostels, restaurants and small stores selling hand-made crafts. It was a chilly day and the usual late afternoon clouds began to role in quickly. After dropping our stuff off at a hostel, we made our way down the steep, sandy trail with other tourists in abundance and young local boys leading donkeys up and down which the tourists could rent if they weren't up to the steep challenge.

The last time I visited Ireland was when I was an awkward child of more or less 8 years when I refused to kiss the Blarney Stone because, well, cooties, and this weekend I got to visit Dublin once again with an old friend of mine from London! My friend, Hannah, used to live down the street from me in New York when we were both growing up, and now that she lives in England, I don’t see her quite often, so it was wonderful to spend the weekend with her in Dublin!

With our dirndls and lederhosen packed away, the students of IES Abroad Vienna set forth for a weekend of Southern Austrian culture as seen in Styria, Austria.

May 6th seemed like a long way away back in January when I arrived in Siena.  But here we are now at the end of April with less than two weeks left until I go back to America and I can’t help but wonder where did all the time go.  At this point in my journey, the mix of emotions is incomprehensible.  Part of me is ready to go home, see all my family and friends, and go back to my normal American, college kid life.  Yet another part of me doesn’t want to let this go.  This has been the most difficu

The last week of everyone being together went by in a flash, but my friends and I definitely tried to squeeze in as much time together as we could. I got to see a few things I had missed in the city, eat plenty of good meals with friends (including a pot luck where we cooked anything and everything we had left in our fridge), and go out to our favorite pubs. The staff at IES Abroad brought us all to a really nice dinner in Dublin to say bye a few days before everyone had to go home.

Earlier this semester, I took a trip by myself to Bologna, Cinque Terre, and Venice.

Recently, I went with my Valuing Diversity class to go to an Immigration center in Rome. The valuing diversity class looks at the issues surrounding immigration and immigration policy in Italy. Through this class, we are able to also look critically at the current immigration crisis and how it affects those living in Italy as well as those who are trying to seek asylum in European countries, especially Italy. What I really love about this class is the field studies that we have the opportunity of doing.

Spanish is spoken all across Latin America, so there is bound to be some regional varieties, and even our Chilean professor joked that Chileans are known for not being able to speak Spanish. I’ll admit Chilean Spanish is a bit different, but you can catch on quickly. As a native Spanish speaker myself it’s very funny to see the cultural differences that impact a standard language into something more local. Here a few words I found particularly useful to know.