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Hey you! Yes you, person reading this. GO ON THIS TRIP. This was another one of the organized trips (I'll eventually get to posting about the adventures I've been doing around London on my own) and it was awesome! We left early Saturday and went to Salisbury and Stonehenge, stayed overnight in Bath, and then got back around 5 on Sunday.
So this week started off a little slow. Classes started which took up most of my days but I still managed to do some wandering and found a few more of the Contrada fountains, Chiocciola (Snail), Selva (Forest/Rhino), Drago (Dragon), Valdimonte (Ram). Its crazy how these fountains are everywhere and no where at the same time, scattered throughout the city right under our noses. Only ten more left to find!
Everyday I wake up in Nantes I'm a bit surprised. Quelquefois I forget I'm in France until I start my treck to the IES Center or the University. As I walk out of my apartment, I am greeted by both crisp winter wind and brilliant French sunshine. I love hearing the heels of my boots click-clack on Nantes' cobblestone streets and seeing French five year olds being led to maternelle by their parents or older siblings.
I went home for the holidays. The only snow I was likely to find in Rome would be the glittering leftover of Saturday night revelry smashed on the cobblestones. Weigh the shards of a Peroni bottle against a million Minnesota snowflakes.
Tomorrow is my last day in Quito and marks four weeks that I have been abroad. This morning I took my final exam and finished editing my final paper for my Techniques of Marine Research I class.
It's hard to believe that my dream of traveling to Australia is becoming a reality in one week. Ever since I entered college, I knew that at one point during my undergraduate career that I would study abroad in a foreign country. After careful consideration and planning ahead, I solidified Sydney, Australia as my destination. It feels good to look back on how far I've come in terms of decision making and making ends meet to make this something quite real now.
CBC テレビ is a television broadcast company here in Nagoya and thanks to my host mom, I got to do a アルバイト (small part time job) at the CBC company building.