Last weekend we crossed off another item on our Ecuador bucket list: go to the zoo. We traveled by a couple of buses to the Quito Zoo, which is located about an hour outside of Quito in the town of Guayllabamba. It was a day well spent, with both the wild animals and the animals at the petting zoo!
The next three weeks will not be much fun. I will not be traveling. I will not be going out until 2:30 in the morning. I will not be spending entire days watching movies and catching up on my favorite American shows online.
Well it’s that time of the year again where we are supposed to say everything we are thankful for. It’s a little disappointing that I was not able to spend the time with my family, but I still managed to have a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with IES Abroad and then a work filled but still fun weekend in Madrid with some IES Abroad students there. So all things considered, it was pretty good.
Our Islamic art and architecture class payed a visit to the Iglesia de San Miguel bajo
15.11 Uhr
Frank Sinatra is crooning in the background as I sit to write this post. Thanksgiving has passed and Santa Claus is coming to town! The Weihnachtsmarkt here in Freiburg opened its doors on Monday, filling the city with Christmas cheer. I made my first visit on Wednesday to enjoy a few glasses of Glühwein.
Living in a foreign country can make you extremely uncomfortable at times for many reasons. Language barriers, unknown customs, and unfamiliar surroundings can commonly combine to make sure visitors simply don’t feel like they are at home. For me, I’ve experienced all of the examples I’ve given, but those all seem minor compared to the thing I struggle with the most on an almost daily basis: just how strange the people around me are acting.
It was one of the most memorable nights of my life. Cold, tired and a little wet from the rainy, two-hour long camel ride, we sat in solidarity around the campfire. We sang and danced for hours, probably close to four. We danced around the fire like tribal hooligans to the music of traditional Moroccan performers, as if we were praying for the rain to go away. We shared moments of ridiculousness, but also of sincerity.
The last trip outside of Nagoya with the IES Abroad gang was to Kyoto (京都). I don’t usually have big expectations for places I want to visit, but for some reason, I was pretty excited for this trip. After a four hour bus ride, we arrived in 京都, but it didn’t feel like we were in 京都. I think this feeling was the first realization that this trip was not going to be all that I thought it would be.
It’s been a while, I know, again. We’ve had our Fall break, and no one really wants to do work during Fall break and the post-break slump happens in Italy too.
In the true nature of procrastination, I planned my fall break trip during fall break.