Every Wednesday we are given a break from the insanity of learning 50+ new vocabulary words a day and are encouraged to go out and explore Beijing. This past Wednesday my friend Lila and I were on the hunt for a foreign market called Jenny Lou’s that is stocked with many Western food products. We both were on a mission to find Western ingredients so that we could make food for our Chinese roommates. As we were wandering through the city attempting to find this market we stumbled across this really interesting and semi-run down amusement park!

I was concerned about Halloween not being a normal part of Aussie culture so I was quite surprised when a friend told me about a Full moon/Halloween party hosted on Magnetic Island which is an island off the coast of Townsville, Queensland. We jumped at the opportunity for a weekend getaway and an awesome party! We booked our flights and hostels and prepared for an awesome beginning to STUVAC (the study vacation that we have before finals begin). Magnetic Island is a gorgeous island with beautiful sandy beaches, palm trees and crystal blue water.

One day sunday is this awesome block party hosted on the last sunday of every month in Marrickville, a town about 5 minutes away from Newtown where Sydney University is located. It’s filled with awesome graffiti, cool people, great food, and an awesome DJ. A few of my Aussie friends got me hip to it and I just absolutely love going each month. October’s One day Sunday was the last one I will be attending which was very bittersweet and made me very reflective. From now on, I will be completing a lot of “lasts”. Last time eating here.

I just spent three nights in Barcelona, Spain, along with the majority of my friends studying abroad in Europe this semester. It was a very popular Halloween destination. The tapas, the architecture, the nightlife, the iced coffee, the warm weather… I could go on forever. It was a blast. I even watch the sunrise over the ocean, while sitting in the sand. It was so nice to see friends from back home, and so fun to be with my Milan friends as well.

As part of the IES Abroad curriculum, one of the options for the 2^nd course took place at EARTH University located in Guácimo, Limón. The course was titled Sustainable Development: Integrating Community, Entrepreneurship and Natural Resources and nine of us registered for it. I have to admit that at first I was hesitant to take the course at EARTH University. The last time I had taken a class involving economics or business was in high school.

A week between our group’s awesome day trip to Toledo and the arrival of my parents to visit me, I’m wondering whether I should be taking advantage of being in the heart of Europe. Many of my fellow IES Abroad students have already made or planned trips to Morocco, Italy, Germany (for Oktoberfest–I’m jealous), and a bunch of other places. I never really considered traveling throughout Europe while studying abroad, but now that I’m here, why not?

After waking up this morning on an overnight field trip, I realized that something was wrong with my eyes. A quick look in the mirror told me that something was VERY wrong with my eyes, which scared me because I immediately thought of how impossible it would be for me to set up an appointment on a Friday for a next day visit. After talking with my program advisor, she told me she would take me to the eye doctor as soon as we returned from the field trip we were on, which was 4 hours from the doctor’s office.