So… I know I´ve been away from the blogging world for 2 months BUT I have an explanation (not an excuse but an actual explanation) so here it is: after coming back from the amazing trip to the Amazon I had my memory card full of photos and videos. I download all of these to my computer plus all of the other photos (so basically a lot of photos and videos) and my computer died. It turned off and when I tried to turn it on again all I could see was a white screen. I freaked out because I hadn´t done backup to any of my Brazil photos.

I finally made it to Muizenberg Beach, Cape Town’s surfer haven. Only a 20 minute train ride from our home in Rosebank, Muizenberg is a really easy way to escape from University life for a bit and enjoy the beauty of the greater Cape Town area. This was my first time ever surfing, although as a NY native I’ve come to love the ocean so I was pretty excited to finally try my hand at this. We rented wetsuits and boards from one of the surf shops on the water and got ready to hit the waves!

Home Sweet Home. It’s weird to being saying that. “Home sweet home”. After spending the last two months living in Berlin, the city does feel like home, especially after spending the last week in St. Petersburg, Russia. I was just getting the hang of German, so spending a week in Russia was challenging, but nevertheless it was one in a life time opportunity. The week was jam-packed with tours of museums, palaces and various important sites related to Russian history. We visited St.

The Berlin Metropolitan Studies program has been nothing but amazing these last two months. The faculty and staff here at IES Abroad are extremely organized, friendly and always willing to go out of their way to make our experience here the absolute best. One of the reasons I chose this program, in addition to the academic focus, was the home-stay option. I have been truly blessed with my home-stay situation. I live with a woman in her apartment in Shöneberg on the S1 bahn line.

“Ottobrare” is a type of lovely, warm, lingering late summer that lasts through October.  It is an Italian term, though I don’t know if the phenomenon is exclusively Italian or Mediterranean in general.  This year we stayed in that golden haze through September and four full weeks of October – a just reward, my host mother informed me, for enduring an unusually cold, wet, and altogether upsetting Roman summer.

From the wise words of a Senegalese hostel worker in Marrakech to the rural villages of the grand Atlas Mountains to the highest peak in North Africa – it was quite a weekend. Mount Toubkal, which stands at 4,167 meters (13,671 ft), is a popular destination for hikers and isn’t too far from Marrakech, the heartland of Morocco’s tourism. With seven others and two local guides, I ventured into rural Berber territory to tackle the climb.