The last week/week and a half has been packed. It seems that every day has been crammed with its own unique adventure from class related things like homework and projects, to extra-curricular activities like museums, and castles. This is only a photo blog so check out the pictures & captions below!

I’ve been on trips with my biology classes back in the US before; last semester, I’d travel with my Marine Organisms class to the Maine coast to collect samples and observe various ecological phenomena every few weeks, so when my Mediterranean Ecosystems professor here in Spain told us we’d be going on a 2-day excursion to the field, I wrote it off as just another “outside-of-class-learning-experience.” Big mistake.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton’s telling quote comes to life in Spain’s little city of Avila.  Every corner of the city seems to call out to God through its many churches, devotion to St. Theresa of Avila, and religious processions.

This Friday IES Comparative Religions course headed a few hours northeast of Salamanca for an archaeological field study. We started the day early, with the bus departing at 7 am from the IES center. The first part of the trip was my favorite, a visit to the archeological park at Atapuerca.

I really enjoyed my trip to Southern Italy this weekend. It focused mostly on Rome, but also included a day trip down to Naples and Pompeii. However, a common thread that united the four-day weekend was the phenomenon of “You Can’t Get There From Here.”