One of the most iconic things to do in Cape Town is to hike the three big peaks (Table Mountain, Lion’s Head, and Devil’s Peak). Our group finished the last of the three (Devil’s) this past weekend. It was a spectacular hike, with magnificent views, an assortment of flora and scenery. Like the others, it was an intensely steep climb that required both hands and feet to make it to the top. However, once we made it to the top we quickly forgot our struggles. The 360 degree view of the cityscape was amazing.

I am back.

I can’t believe how fast it all went. As you can tell, I didnt even get a chance to write much the last two weeks I was in Paris. With school and trying to cram as much as posisble into my finals days in France, updating my blog just wasn’t an option. So, sadly, I’m back now, writing away.

After four weeks of discovering the twisted streets of Cataluña, today was our last day in Barcelona. It has been the trip of a lifetime with several impromptu ice creams, dozens of much needed coffees and an exponential amount of stories. We decided to hike up onto park Guell to see the entire city today so that we could reminisce together about this past unforgettable month. Antonia Gaudi, the architect who also designed La Sagrada Familia, designed the park.

WOW. What an amazing two weeks it’s been since I arrived on July 1st.  There’s so much that I did, but I’ll give a synopsis of the first week:

If you would have told me that I would be spending 6 months in Europe my junior year of college I would have said, what are you, crazy?  But now that it has happened, I murmur to myself, what would I be without those 6 months abroad? Would I have grown in the ways that I did? Would I have discovered a society where I ironically felt more at peace, that when I lived in my society of origin? Initially, my study abroad started off as a dazed and confused rushed string of events.

As the semester is coming to a close and I’m scrambling to get all my work done that I put off over the last few weeks, (“Of course I’ll get gelato with you!” “A bike ride around Villa Borghese will only take an hour, right?”) it’s been hard to find time to balance school with my internship. I haven’t been on an assignment in a week and I’m starting to miss it; I’m not a workaholic, I just happened to have the best internship ever.

It’s been two and half weeks since I left Italy and returned to the States. Of course, it was great to see friends and family again, but also small things like the chalk drawings at the local Trader Joe’s, clearly marked roads, July 4th fireworks, and the abundance of delicious Taiwanese food, made me incredibly happy to be home.

Every summer, there is a month long theater festival in Avignon, a town about twenty minutes north of Arles by train. It was founded in 1947 by actor and director Jean Vilar, under the belief that theater should be, to use his term, a public service. The idea of it harkens back to Greek and Roman theater, which was free to the public. While most shows are not free, the festival, which spans the entirety of the town, does offer all sorts of plays (classics, modern pieces, unknown pieces, and what have you) for extremely cheap prices.