For three hours we talked about the International Monetary Fund, Jean-Claude Van Damme’s movies, Charles Aznavour’s hit song Je Suis un Mort Vivant, Joan Baez’s and Bob Dylan’s activism, John Kenneth Galbraith’s economic theories, Bayern Munich’s season, Andrea Bocelli’s Time to Say Goodbye, the global reach of the Siemens engineering company, Jacques Brel’s easily translatable lyrics and Susan Boyle’s incredible audition on Britain’s Got Talent (yes, this was all in one conversation).

As a queer Latino studying abroad, I was able to catch a glimpse of the LGBTQ community in Costa Rica. Though the Catholic religion has had a major influence, there are other factors that have complicated the progress of the LGBTQ movement in Costa Rica. First, on a global scale, the LGBTQ movement has been a recent social phenomenon. Second, many of the political movements that have occurred in Latin America have targeted dictatorship governments as well as political corruption.

I spent Halloween in Paris with friends. As a lot of us had been before, we didn’t feel the need to re-visit all the monuments, which afforded us more time to explore side streets and neighborhoods. Our apartment was right next to Rue Mouffetard, in the Latin Quarter, where I ate the best meals of my life thus far… also where I blew all my hard-earned #cashdollars (oops #casheuros) because nothing in the city of lights is cheap. But it was worth every cent.

This past week was spent eating typical Ecuadorian food, spending time with family and friends, dancing, partying and overall celebrating the foundation of Quito: Fiestas de Quito.