As my first semester at IES Beijing comes to a close, my friends and I have just about mastered the art of staying in touch. With technology enabling all kinds of interaction across the world, I guess I really just don’t even understand how people used to stay in touch before the internet.

On my last full weekend in Quito, two friends, my host dad, and I took our last paseo, a camping and hiking adventure to Laguna Quilotoa, the largest (or highest, I cant remember) crater lake in Ecuador. Distinguished by its turquoise waters, the site put on quite a show for us, as we enjoyed 70 degree weather and sun, and hiked a section around the rim, more difficult than it looks for the dry, loose sand that makes up the terrain in this environment.

I think if you took an unofficial poll of ex-pats and students studying abroad, the times when homesickness is felt most acutely is during the holiday season. Here are some tips to avoid catching the plague of all study abroad students and foreigners on the most contagious of days: The Holidays.

In my last post, I posted a video of our program’s trip to the Galapagos Islands, a childhood dream come true for me and one of the deciding factors of me choosing the IES Quito program for my study abroad experience. It was a trip of a lifetime, five days away from the city on these remote, exotic islands. I felt like I was living in an episode of a BBC or Animal Planet wildlife show, practically waiting for Jeff Corwin or some British guy to narrate the behaviors and wildlife.

With respect to the passing of Nelson Mandela, I’ve decided to reflect on my service while I have been abroad.

Paris may be known as “The City of Lights,” but around Christmastime, I’d say that London gives Paris a run for its money.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in Milan, and I am loving it.  All of the streets are decorated with lights and rugs out in front of each shop.  There is even a large Christmas tree in front of the Duomo. And not only does it look like Christmas, but it feels like it too.  Last weekend it even snowed for a couple of hours and has been very cold these last couple of weeks.  Being from Washington you think I might be used to the snow and cold, but boy am I not!

I’m finally settled back in Berlin for the home stretch of the semester, but am even now trying to figure out how I will fit all the Christmas presents I bought during vacation into a suitcase that already met the weight limit when I left. For vacation, three friends and I spent three days in Vienna, and three days in Prague. In keeping with the theme of my entire time in Europe, both cities held exciting surprises.