Gruße Gott! I'm here to share about one of my favorite aspects of the city: the public transportation! (okay, so maybe public transportation isn't so exciting for everyone...but stay with me for this one.)

It may come as no surprise to hear that English Literature and Language is one of the top five subjects at Oxford, and, truly, it shouldn’t— if there’s one thing Oxford could master, its native language might as well be it. And when you’ve got a whole bunch of geniuses who can read and write, you’d better believe they’re making strides.

Psst—Ben, you haven’t done a blog in… too long.

I know! I know, it’s just that everything is happening and if it’s not happening then it would be happening except that everything else is already happening. Craziness, really.

For the latter part of our Chinese National Holiday, a few of us decided to go to Chengdu, China. Chengdu is the capital city of the Sichuan Province in Southwest China and is China’s 5th largest city. Often referred to as the "Country of Heaven" or "The Land of Abundance," the city is home to 260 Fortune 500 companies, making it worthy of such a nickname for its strong economy.

Friday after class two beautiful IES students and I spent far too much time eating cinnamon and applesauce waffles, drinking coffee, sharing stories, and attempting to read the most artfully illustrated German children’s books in the back of Café der Provinz on Maria Treu Gasse. I had signed up for a night hike in Grinzing earlier that week that one of our IES advisors had planned for us as a study break the night before our Saturday morning German midterm.

On the IES trip to the Tuscany we were able to explore the small town of Montalcino for lunch and continued our trip with a guided tour of Siena. After the tour and some free time, we drove to Trequanda, where we dined and slept in a beautiful farmhouse estate named Fattoria del Colle. There we learned how to cook pici pasta from scratch and were able to taste some of their vineyard's wines.

This morning, I woke up pleasantly late to meet some friends from my Personality Theories and Psychopathology class. We gathered right off the Kettenbrückengasse U-Bahn stop and walked quickly through the yelping stalls for the most sumptuous Israeli breakfast at a small restaurant called Neni. We all sat, surrounded by our stripped-off coats, and smiled the entire time. We’d done some traveling the previous weekend, so stories of Venice, Prague, and Salzburg bubbled up.

I remember during my second week in Morocco, I sat in a Meknes Café among a group of my American peers and young Moroccans. I was explaining to a new Moroccan friend (in English) about the hardships I had already encountered as a foreigner trying to speak Modern Standard Arabic with other Moroccans. Intending to offer some consolation, he shrugged his shoulders, and replied nonchalantly,   “Well, if they cannot understand you, you can always answer in French. They should understand that.”