It seems fitting that I write my first post about South Africa on Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, a day that celebrates a man,  like Nelson Mandela, who believed that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Officially there are t-minus five days until I drive to JFK in NYC and board my 18 hour flight to beautiful South Africa. I still can’t believe that I will get to live in the Mother City for five months, with my best friend living just down the road. However, these next five days are going to be tough.

It has been over a month since I left Paris. Little things remind me of Paris all the time: rows of baguettes in the grocery store, French words on a billboard, the black and white photos covering my walls. Transitioning back to life in the US had been strange. The first day I got back, I was walking down the street and all around me I could hear people speaking in English. I was so overwhelmed because hearing English just didn’t feel right. I felt so uneasy and out of place, all I wanted was for someone to speak French.

I anxiously read today’s date on my phone’s calendar, it’s only 1/20/2014. I still have four more weeks until I begin my semester at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (上海财经大学). What am I going to do for the next month while everyone else back at my home university is already back in school?

Usually the phrase “going in circles” has a negative implication, but here it’s a fact of life. The shape of Milan is a series of circles nestled inside one another, demonstrating the growth pattern of the city from its medieval roots to the outlying suburbs. No matter how lost you get, eventually you will end up somewhere familiar. The first few days definitely had a “survival” feel to them: using public transportation, purchasing an Italian cell phone, how to order a cappuccino…the important things.

The two adjectives I hear (and use) most frequently since arriving in Nantes a week and a half ago are “fatigué” (tired) and “enthousiaste” (excited). Everyone is constantly tired due to our full schedule of orientation activities and the difficulty of listening to and speaking French all the time. But at the same time, we’re all so happy about everything we’ve been doing that the exhaustion is put aside in favor of excitement.

My host mother met me at Nanzan’s CJS Office and drove me home in her car. She asked me a lot about myself, and was especially detailed in asking me about what I could and could not eat. I was a vegetarian in the US, and coming to Japan I have decided to be more flexible with my diet, but also to stick to vegetarian food as much as I can.

18 January 2014

And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Even though this line marked the end of The Great Gatsby, I find myself thinking of its relevance on the eve of my departure to Paris. And then by some strange process of osmosis, the characters of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald in the film Midnight in Paris (2011) come to mind. It’s funny how our brains work.

“No one runs in Barcelona,” someone told me upon my arrival.

I hadn’t seen many runners in my first week in the city, but I’d signed up for a group run with other IES students, so I laced up my running shoes and tied my hair back, ready to test this theory.

Our run was led by Giuseppe, a staff member from Barcelona. He pointed to a map and showed the three of us the route, a seven-mile loop around the city.

¡Hola a todos!

Ayer fuimos a…I mean…yesterday we went to visit the marvelous city of Segovia.  Once again, (and you’ll see this as a pattern), I do not want to say too much with words in regards to what I present to you, but rather, I want to show you what I saw.  I’d like to highlight one thing that struck me the most, however: the mystery.