Well, it’s not technically Halloween anymore, but it’s All Saints’ Day, which is much more significant in Europe. It means a day off of school! Halloween is celebrated here, but not nearly as much as it is in the United States. It has been growing in popularity over the past decade though. Last night, I saw both kids and adults in costume, and it really reminded me of home.

Come Sunday, I’ll be embarking on two full weeks of travel. I’m spending the first week with my entire IES group in Paris, and the second week will be split between London and Budapest with friends.

As thrilled as I am to explore these new cities, I can help but think about how much I’m going to miss Berlin during my short time away. Over the past couple months, this city has become a home to me. It’s certainly a different sort of home than how I regard my “real” home (Indianapolis!), but still a home, none-the-less.

After our odyssey from Munich last month, Louisa and I returned to Siena groggy and exhausted. Our legs led us down Banca di Sopra, trudging in a traveler’s stupor. As we clambered into the Piazza I realized how odd it was that we had yet to run into someone we knew. As I began to air this observation to Louisa, she exclaimed “Hey, look it’s Billy!” This is what I love about Siena. A trio for lunch morphs into a table for six. A moment by the fountain transforms into a group nap in the piazza. Friends are everywhere.

Welcome back! Here is part 2 of my Golden Week Adventures. Happy Valley is really the only other major place that I went during the break. The rest of my week consisted of lots of sleeping/eating/relaxing; really taking in the time to soak in the city (or that’s what I’d like to believe haha). Now onto Happy Valley:

The Park

One morning, about two weeks, my flatmate Jacque asked me if I had noticed the wall lately – right behind the door. I had, just the night before. There was a long line of fuzzy greenish-black. I got a q-tip out of my room and swiped some of the fuzz. Yep. Mold.

Obviously, London is a damp place. And, I sometimes forget, but England is an island. But the big problem here was our leaky shower.

Word got around. Kenzie, who lived in the flat next to me, discovered some of this lovely mold behind her bed. I checked behind mine, and yep, mold. Fantastic.

Here are some unedited pictures I took from our trip to 1933 Shanghai

Golden Week

Here are all the missing photos from my previous post:

Back at home, I somehow always ended up with only one midterm or none at all. While everyone else was running around the computer lab, reloading money on their university ID cards in order to print out essay after essay, I was simply looking on with amused pity. At IES, however, I became one of these students who rewrote pages of notes, worked on essays until the computer lab closed, and got significantly less sleep than usual for the sake of studying. I am rather glad I was pushed like this, though–I can’t just coast through college if I want to leave with some worthwhile knowledge!