When the airline has a safety video that is mocking Lord of the Rings, it is kind of an unspoken rule that you have to visit middle earth.

I, for one, am not a fan. Not that I dislike the movies- I did struggle to make it through the first series- but it definitely was not on the top of my list for why I wanted to come to New Zealand.

It seems to me that in this current day and age the debate over merit, nature, and nurture has still yet to be decided. With the recent revisions and re-evaluations of affirmative action, society is questioning the validity of the minority experience. The experience has fallen from its formative position as an introspective moment, where the United States has pushed itself to widen the definition of what it means to be American.

The city “bowl” of Cape Town is surrounded by mountains. The most famous is Table Mountain (3,558 ft), recently named a World Wonder. There is also Devil’s Peak (3,281 ft), Lion’s Head (2,195 ft) and Signal Hill (1,148 ft). During my time here I have climbed each of them except for Signal Hill, but on Saturday a few friends and I climbed all four. We had a meeting on Friday night to discuss our options and plan our route.

Well, I’ve made it back stateside. After a long week of what felt like constant travel after classes at IES ended, it was a welcome relief to meet my parents and boyfriend at the airport, ready to greet me and take all my heavy bags and drive me home. Though I hardly knew how to feel about being back in America.

This whirlwind of a semester has flown by even faster than I could imagine. During finals week, it was one of the first times all semester the sun stopped hiding behind the clouds. IES Barcelona students celebrated the weather by hitting the beach. But I decided to board a bus to the airport instead.

Returning after 16 days on the move, seeing much of Tibet, unpacking was a sad experience. It meant that my travels in Tibet were over. Before I departed, I knew next to nothing about Tibet, its people, its language or its culture. It was a mythical place, which only seemed to exist in movies and on TV, but not a place where I would go. Now having finally visited the roof of the world (one of Tibet’s many nicknames), I can say it is no longer a complete mystery to me, yet many of its mythical qualities remain.

Well, I feel all sorts of cheated on after what I found out, but first, a little back story.