Three years ago I moved out, not just out of the house but out of the state. You may have joked about finally being able to kick me out and send me off to school, but we all know you’re a professional worrier. How did you feel when I told you I was moving to South America for a year?

As my program comes down to the last few days, the fact that I'm leaving and I probably won't see these people for a long while is really getting to me. It feels as if I just met these people yesterday and I still have so many things to do and memories to make. Although I am extremely happy with everything I've done during my stay here in Nantes, I do have a few regrets. Both will come in the form of advice for anyone else in this program in the future.

I'm just going to talk about the experiences from these photos in order of least exciting to most exciting!

For a field trip in my Ecuadorian art class, we took a day trip back to Lake Quilotoa by tiny school bus. The trip was long and a little cramped,  but still the lake is a beautiful thing to see every time. We had some more time to walk around the top rather than walking down to the shore. We're still not completely sure why we went because we didn't end up seeing much art, but I guess the lake was inspirational. 

Bonjour from Château de Fontainebleau et Château de Vaux le Vicomte,

Teatime in Morocco is truly a special tradition. It’s become such a part of my life; I decided that I couldn’t go without devoting an entire post to it.

I may have said this in every blog post so far, but this was definitely one of my favorite weekends! We finally got to go into the depths of the Amazon Rainforest. The journey was long because the majority of the ride was on motorized canoes and trucks, but we made it there eventually. The research station called Tiputini, is run by the University of San Francisco de Quito, where some of the other IES Abroad students take classes.

Studying abroad in two locations has its pros and cons. Of course you’ll meet new incredible people and places along the way, but you’ll eventually have to say bye to them too. When I first signed up for this program I knew I wanted to have a unique experience – and I certainly have – but I didn’t really take into consideration the hassles of moving around so often.

With IES Abroad you're able to get a whole week of for spring break. Our spring break was even longer due to the fact that IES Abroad doesn't have classes on Fridays and the Monday after our spring break was a national holiday for Easter. While this post is a little late for spring break, I wanted to quickly reflect on my favorite city that I’ve ever been to. During my spring break, I spent the first weekend in Rome seeing the sites.