This past Saturday, we headed to Suzhou for the day. After a rude awakening and having to be on the bus at 9AM, (Yes, we consider that pretty early), we found ourselves at a 3D printing factory. We were asked not to take photos, so unfortunately, I don’t have any from our first stop. Then, we ate lunch in the same complex as the silk factory. Silk is a huge part of the culture in Suzhou. We learned more about how silk cocoons are used to create the softest cloth materials. After the tour, we headed to the Lion Grove Garden.

What’s Different between New Zealand and the USA?

1.  Here, they say “keen” for excited or pumped, “sweet as” for awesome or sweet, cookies are called biscuits, and no, they don’t have our thanksgiving biscuits.  A cooler is a “chilly bin”, Rice Krispy’s are called Rice Bubbles, and a BBQ does not have the typical hamburgers and hot dogs, but rather beef sausages on bread with onions and ketchup.

Today was my last day of Spanish class, and thus also my last day in Heredia before I leave for my next class in Limón at EARTH University. For those who may be interested in this program, one of the things that I love about it is the modular structure. Instead of dealing with the stress of multiple classes and living in a foreign country, the San Jose program is designed so that students take one intensive class per month. I like this structure because it allows time for more immersion in addition to classes.

I finally can say I feel a bit more settled here in Freiburg. I can’t believe it’s only been a week! IES has kept us pretty busy with orientation meetings and excursions, and now our language intensive courses have started. It’s been hard getting adjusted to making my own food and budgeting my money! I’m not sure if I quite have it down but hopefully I’ll figure it out before the last month that I’m here.

Tomorrow starts a new month here in Freiburg, and hopefully with the change in the month comes a more permanent change in the weather. I would love for Freiburg to warm up and a bit and for the sun to set later. I’m definitely ready for summer, or even spring. Although the other day I went wandering around the nearby lake, and it most certainly felt like springtime.

Now that we’re about halfway through the semester, I feel pretty accustomed to the way classes work here. I am taking five classes, two at the University of Nantes and three at the IES Center.

Today is the first day of our spring break! I’m going to Geneva and London with a friend from IES. I am pretty terrible at packing and planning and tend to leave everything until the last minute. So of course last night I was trying to figure out how to fit ten days worth of clothes into a backpack while researching things to do in Geneva and London and completing an application for a summer job that’s due on Monday. Typical.

Before even beginning my internship, I must have thought of a million reasons why doing it would prove to be entirely too overwhelming and too time consuming. Fortunately, Simona, the internship coordinator at IES Roma, did not let me make a final decision without visiting my internship site first. And surely enough, after my first visit, during which I met the director of Casa Famiglia, I somehow felt and knew that I needed to do this.

“Come as you are. Pay as you feel.”

I was walking along the Albert Cuyp Market when I noticed these words drawn onto a window. Like any other hungry student on a budget, my first thought was whether free food was available.

Ciao a tutti!