Happy belated Valentine's Day! I hope you all had a wonderful valentine's day with someone(s) special. If not, I hope you spent it curled up in a warm little ball, binge watching that special show and YOLO food that satisfies you just right. Me?

So all of us IES bloggers were requested to show off our Valentines Day holiday spirit and report on what we LOVE about studying abroad thus far.

I arrived at this fabulous city only 3 short days ago, am minus one piece of luggage (shout out to Virgin Australia for that), and acquired a really fun stomach bug my second day/night.

There are many things I get to be grateful for this Valentines Day (even if that is more fitting for Thanksgiving). I have spent just under one week on San Cristobal Island, Galapagos.  I LOVE it here.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I think the time has come for me to say it: I have fallen in love! “How has she possibly had time to meet anyone?” you may ask, or “Who could possibly succeed in melting her cold heart?” Well, you see, it’s less of a ‘someone’ that I am in love with, and more of a ‘bunch of someones,’ or, on a bad day, you could even call it a ‘what.’ I have (very quickly) fallen in love with the wonderful city of Vienna!

I recently went on a short 3 day trip to Osaka (大阪), where I had my first realization of how much the city of Nagoya has become my second home. This was my first time planning and taking a trip outside of Nagoya by myself, which was not very difficult, but a new experience in itself.

I’m sorry it has been a while since my last post, the whole IES crew just got back from a 12 day backpacking trip in Yunnan, which is a province South West of Beijing.

In honor of Valentine’s Day I was prompted to write a blog post about something I love about Ecuador and my study abroad experience thus far. While contemplating this question, I considered writing about the ease of traveling, or the amazing biodiversity of the land and the people, but after giving it much thought, I think what I have loved the most about this past month is the fact that every day is a new adventure.