As part of our human rights course, my group had the opportunity to travel down the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and then to Bocas del Toro, Panama to speak with human rights defenders. In Costa Rica, we stopped in the communities of Cahuita and BriBri. Cahuita is a tranquila town on the Caribbean coast whose residents have co-ownership of the national park with the government. However, gaining co-ownership and management of the park was no easy task.

Recently, our program organized an overnight trip to Maastricht, a city that is located southeast of the Netherlands. We took a city tour of the picturesque city before stopping to sample the famous Limburg pies.  After wandering in the shopping streets, we were treated with a decadent three-course meal to end the first day.

At Wash U, English classes are mostly assessed by essay. You get some flexibility with your topic, opportunities to meet with your professor, and weeks to fret over it in your sweatpants. If there is a final, it usually takes place in the classroom, with the professor benevolently looking on.

My first Trinity exam took place in a frigid hall reminiscent of an aircraft hangar, located thirty minutes away from campus. It was filled with five hundred desks, a dozen pacing invigilators and the stench of fear.

Our third and final IES ABroad weekend trip was to a nearby city called Clisson. It was a beautiful day! We walked along the river and through the town before getting lunch. We found the perfect picnic spot right next to the river and enjoyed the sun. After lunch, we visited the chateau which is right in the center of the city. It was very different from all of the other chateaux we’ve seen because it was medieval and a lot of it had been destroyed. It was interesting to see something other than the typical glamorous chateaux of the Loire.

After a few days in Paris, my family came to Nantes. I showed them some sights of Nantes as well as some of my favorite places. We also took a day trip to two chateaux of the Loire Valley, Villandry and Azay-le-Rideau, which were stunning. My family went to Mont Saint Michel for their last day but I didn’t accompany them because I had already been there with IES Abroad.

Service Learning has been a huge part of my college career. At Bates, not only is there an emphasis on integrating classroom and community work, but I’ve also been fortunate to participate in the Bonner Program (a national organization that promotes service work on college campuses). So it seemed like a no brainer to take the Service Learning class here in Quito.

At about noon on Saturday, April 26th, I made my way to St. Peter’s Square to meet up with a few friends. We had been planning for weeks to camp out just outside the square for the historical double canonization of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII, which would be presided over by Pope Francis. I literally cannot tell you how excited I was to experience and be a witness to this. In fact, knowing that this would be happening in April served as was one of the many reasons that I chose to study abroad in Rome.

My family came to visit me! They decided to use the fact that I am in France as an excuse to take a trip to Europe. I fully supported the idea. I met them in Paris on a Friday and we spent four days there (shoutout to the director of the program for allowing me to miss two days of class) before bringing them to Nantes for the rest of the week. It was strange seeing them after a few months apart; it was like having my two separate lives overlap.