Week Two Complete! Park Güell, Tarragona, and so much more

Hello everyone! Week number two is complete here in Barcelona and I could not be more excited to share my recent adventures with you. Just yesterday, I visited Park Güell, a masterpiece of the famous Catalonian architect, Antoni Gaudí. His work primarily was created around the early 1900’s, when Barcelona was flourishing after expanding rapidly through …

Going Inside of a Volcano?!

Sounds crazy, right? Well the truth is that the volcano, while active, only releases small bubbles to the surface of the lake that covers the crater of the volcano. So even though I was “inside” of a volcano, it only felt like I was on the lake! Inside of el Volcán Cotacachi is Lake Cuicocha. Here are some interesting …

First Impressions

The altitude takes some getting used to, but the view is phenomenal! This season is the rainy season in Quito, so it’s been mostly cloudy (Quito has two seasons: dry and rainy). However, when the sun comes up it gets HOT! I made sure to pack some SPF 50 sunscreen bottles to protect my skin. …

Me voy para Ecuador

For weeks, I knew that the hardest thing about leaving for Ecuador would be the goodbyes. My mom is very emotional (and so am I), so there was no way to escape the waterworks as I departed from the airport on my way to Quito. The Mexican culture is very familial, and my family is, …

Istanbul

The plane that spirited me away from fair Athens spat me out – sleep-deprived – in the merry city of Istanbul/Constantinople/Byzantion/Byzantium.  Baklava here is, empirically better than anywhere else in the world, and the sights are unparalleled. It is, after all, a Roman Greek Turkish European Asian Muslim Christian Jewish Byzantine Ottoman smorgasbord about 2600 years old. …

Leaving Greece

I lied. This is the penultimate post. I assure you, Amy, I did not mean to swindle you.  It’s just that there’s so much to write, and I didn’t know how to summarize my Greek pilgrimage in so few words and…ah. Well! It felt not so long ago that I was rambling about the newness of …

Germania

Or Fall Break Part II. As I sat down at the boarding gate in Pisa heading to Frankfurt, I wasn’t terribly worried. After that adventure in Assisi friendhunting, karma would afford me a hitchless ride through to Göttingen, from the airport. Not so.  You see, Josh had foolishly booked a Ryanair flight to a minor …

Italia

Pardon my long absence. The CYA has its midterms, its Thanksgiving Break, and its finals all rolled into the same 30 days, so it’s been a whirlwind keeping it all under control. As you may know, I am no longer in happy Athenai, but am posted currently in Istanbul.  But that’s for when I get …

Cape town

I spent my last few two days in South Africa in the beautiful city of Cape Town. Compared to Durban the parts of Cape Town I saw were very touristy and European. The city is in between the ocean and the mountains. So anywhere you go the views are breathtaking. Speaking of mountains, let’s talk …

A piece of my soul…

Why did I go to South Africa? The answer to that question has changed dramatically since I left for Durban on August 20th.  I went to South Africa to focus on the racial history of the country to get an international perspective on race. I spent some time intentionally pondering race in South Africa but …