One morning, about two weeks, my flatmate Jacque asked me if I had noticed the wall lately – right behind the door. I had, just the night before. There was a long line of fuzzy greenish-black. I got a q-tip out of my room and swiped some of the fuzz. Yep. Mold.

Obviously, London is a damp place. And, I sometimes forget, but England is an island. But the big problem here was our leaky shower.

Word got around. Kenzie, who lived in the flat next to me, discovered some of this lovely mold behind her bed. I checked behind mine, and yep, mold. Fantastic.

Here are some unedited pictures I took from our trip to 1933 Shanghai

Golden Week

Here are all the missing photos from my previous post:

Back at home, I somehow always ended up with only one midterm or none at all. While everyone else was running around the computer lab, reloading money on their university ID cards in order to print out essay after essay, I was simply looking on with amused pity. At IES, however, I became one of these students who rewrote pages of notes, worked on essays until the computer lab closed, and got significantly less sleep than usual for the sake of studying. I am rather glad I was pushed like this, though–I can’t just coast through college if I want to leave with some worthwhile knowledge!

For Chinese class we had a field trip to the Shanghai International Lantern Festival at Fuxing park. The festival is held every year and this year for 40 days. This year it was held from September 5^th to October 14^th. The park was covered in lanterns of all shapes and sizes. The park had a lot of themed lantern “pavilions” featuring animals, gods, people, iconic buildings etc all lit by leds.

I’ve had class all morning, and I have an exam for my art history class – taught in the Prado museum – in a couple hours. I should be studying, or perhaps packing for my trip to the south of Spain that begins tomorrow, or even napping, since I fell asleep on all four trips I’ve taken on public transportation today. Instead, I am sitting as close to the radiator in my room as possible with a mug of tea and cookies. And jonesing to write about what I think is possibly the most fascinating part of my study abroad experience.

IES gave us 10 days off of school in the middle of the semester! With all of this time off in the middle of the semester my friends and I decided to explore other parts of South America outside of Argentina. We first went to Cusco, Peru where we were able to see a lot of Incan ruins in Cusco the city, at Sacred Valley, Ollantaytambo, and of course Machu Picchu. It was spectacular! After Peru we ventured to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where we were able to relax at Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, summit Sugarloaf Mountain, and see Cristo Redentor up close! It was also an amazing trip!

Literally translated as “book eater,” comelibros means “nerd” in Ecuadorian Spanish.

On the other hand, parrandero means “party-animal.”

This particular post is about my comelibros-life in Ecuador.