IES has several program-sponsored field trips planned for the semester, and the first of these was a trip to Narita for its Taiko Festival! Getting there seemed a little tricky, especially since IES staff isn’t going to hold our hands anymore for this kind of thing and we had to make our way to Narita ourselves. After a short train ride and an even shorter trip on the monorail (in hindsight probably not the most cost-effective way to go), I met up with several IES friends at the Chiba-Minato station.

Last Wednesday was May 1^st, international labor day. Little did I know, the whole city would erupt into celebrations and demonstrations and picnicking and dancing.

It’s pretty common and pretty easy to get homesick while studying abroad, especially when you’re gone for a semester or even an entire year. As I actually go to school in my hometown, this semester is by far the longest amount of time I’ve spent away from my parents. As a lot of people know, it can be pretty hard to keep in touch. Even though I’m still very close to my friends from high school, I still have only managed to Skype with them a few times throughout each semester.

Early Saturday morning, after staying a few nights in Auckland, I packed up and hopped on a shuttle towards the airport.  After reuniting with the entire IES gang, we told all of our great stories about the previous two weeks and boarded the airplane.

I had a realization today, sitting with the sea birds on a cliff of basalt, and the realization was this: every animal on this island looks like an old man.  The blue-footed boobies look like bewildered old men who’ve just lost their spectacles.

Last Saturday we had our IES trip to Robben Island. We took a short ferry from the Waterfront to the island where we got on a bus tour around the island.

On the ferry from Cape Town’s Waterfront to Robben Island.