Kia Ora!

These past two weeks have been both generally incredible and incredibly busy.

The final week of orientation focused a lot on history, and honestly left me with a strong desire to learn more about Italian history as a whole.

It’s not that I find U.S. history boring, so much as the novelty of it has worn away with time. We grow up and go to school learning about U.S. history, and therefore it feels less interesting.

What you see here is a re-cap video from our 3-day orientation in the Northern Styrian city of Mariazell. Here, we were acquainted with most everything that has to do with our program and beginning our experience in Vienna (I say ‘beginning’, because there was and is still much to learn, everyday while being here).

It feels like it’s been a month, but today marks the end of my first week on San Cristobal island. I moved in with my new family, started getting accustomed to island life, began my evolutionary ecology class and four days later took the midterm.

As part of the IES Abroad program, housing is provided to students through Costarricense host families. As I mentioned in my 1^st blog, all of our host homes are located in Santo Domingo de Heredia and are within distance to one another. My Costarricense family consist of my host mother, her son, and her two grandchildren. Being a native Spanish speaker has allowed me to communicate with my family easily and has allowed me to help out my compañeras (female classmates).

When I landed in London on my first day, it suddenly hit me I was across the “pond” and that it was all about me being independent and self-sufficient from now on. Once I got my bags and took an hour long ride from Heathrow to Nido Kings Cross, I felt a bit better. I stepped out of the taxi, went inside and filled out some basic paperwork.

Let me fill you in on some of the things I have done since I arrived in Nagoya.

I had the pleasure of going to the horse races recently and what an experience that was. Let me preface this post by saying that I have never been to a horse race nor have I known anyone (as far as I know) who has. So when my friend invited me, I had no idea what to expect. Due to my ignorance I met her at her friends house where we would be eating lunch first in a denim shirt and flats. This was a maaaaajor NO NO as I soon saw everyone wearing beautiful dresses, heels, and frilly hats. I had no idea!