This past weekend, most of us IES students went to La Isla Grande de Chiloé. Just a two-hour plane ride south, this island is one of the more beautiful destinations in Chile. Or so they say. I was not really sure what to expect going into the trip, as Chiloé’s beauty cannot be defined as easily as say, the rugged Atacama Desert or the majestic Andes range, but I was eager to find out exactly what it was about the island that made people fall in love with it.

During our first days in Spain, my roommate and I told our host mom that we eat basically everything, but emphasized that we love fruits and vegetables.  She nodded in approval, and has been generous enough to make salads for lunch and keep a fruit supply for breakfast.

It’s now been a month here in Paris and the Marias has easily become one of my favorite areas in Paris. Below are some visuals from what I have found walking around in the area. Enjoy

Climbing into my last month in Auckland, New Zealand, I have been thinking a lot about how I will talk about this country after I am gone. When I put 8,000 miles between me and this country I’ve called home for 4 months, how will I remember it? I wonder if I’ll insert Kiwi vocabulary into my daily life.

Boy oh boy, have the last two weeks been hectic. That’s, of course, why it’s been so long since my last blog post. Now, I’m sitting in my apartment on this fine Sunday with a choice: study for my three midterms or procrastinate a little bit. So here I am, writing my blog.

I take the liberty of imagining your academic lives, O fellow students.

You have settled into the routine of the semester, with midterms still pleasantly distant on the horizon. You’re sorting through topics for that paper that isn’t due for another blessed month. Your professors no longer have to look at that embarrassing sheet of student ID photos when they take attendance.

I too am letting the thought of midterms slide for a bit, and I haven’t had to turn in any papers yet. I don’t miss the attendance-photo ritual.

But I do miss one aspect of American classes.

The context at that point was innocent enough. I was called over to the corner of the play room where about fifteen kids and an unknown adult were crowded around the couch with my fellow intern as he spelled our names and surnames for them. While he speaks French and is picking up Arabic quickly, the rapid Darija was unintelligible and I was called to translate (or rather gist) the questions being rapid-fired in his direction.

Due to the rather lengthy nature of this story, which I feel compelled to retell in all its glory, I will split it into two posts.