This past weekend we took a trip to Minas Gerais. It was a sweet, quaint little trip. I absolutely loved it! It was a beautiful place, and it was nice to get out and see other places in Brazil.

We flew into the city of Belo Horizonte on Friday. There we visited the Inhotim Park. It was incredible!! It was so huge!! We had a delicious lunch at a restaurant at the park and then split up on our own to explore. I saw all kinds of imported exotic plants, as well as some indigenous plants, such as the Pau-Brasil.

I’ve been home from Dublin for a few days now, and it’s weird. That’s the only way to put it. I’m not used to being home. North Carolina feels radically different than the places where I’ve spend the last six weeks of my life. Mostly I just miss the city. I miss waking up in the morning and knowing that I have all kinds of adventures waiting for me. I’m bored more than anything else.

I’ve been back for about a couple of weeks now, and with barely a day in between from when I returned, I’ve ended back up in a city, that is, New York City. Though I live in a small suburb of New Jersey, tightly nestled in the quiet woods, I’ve come back to the wonderful craziness of NYC to return to my internship from last summer: WQXR classical radio.  Though I definitely could have used the rejuvenation time out in the country, I wanted to get in as much time as possible back at the station before I head back to school.

With only five days left in Arles, I find myself wishing for more time. Things have just started to feel like normal life, natural. Or maybe I’ve only recently realized how natural every day here is.

I suspect my return home from Vienna has been a slightly unusual one.  After a travel day that lasted over 24 hours (during which I watched an embarrassing number of movies), I came back to my house for the first time in over six months. The next day, I saw a musical. For the following three days, I worked 7 hour days as a coach for a volleyball camp at my elementary school, and, finally, on Thursday, I departed for 10 days for my sixth year at Northern California Flute Camp, from which I returned this weekend.

It’s been almost two weeks since I returned from Ecuador. Coming home that first day, I couldn’t believe that just two months ago, I had stood in the same place getting ready for my flight there!

Living in Brazil during the World Cup has been a unique opportunity for our IES Abroad cohort to experience. The Rio we have experienced has been full of many people of many different nationalities, proudly waving their country’s flag through the streets. It has been heavily patrolled by police and the military on a daily basis. The streets have been packed. The bars have been even more packed. Fireworks were heard all through the night. It has been soccer 24/7.