This week has been pretty crazy because technically it has been dead week but I have survived the week.  Besides doing homework I went out with friends to the centro on Friday and went shopping.  The centro is pretty amazing because all the culture of Queretaro culminates in one place.  I had a great time walking around and had fun with friends.  On Saturday I went to a water park with my host family and got to ride a raft.  In the end this week has been stressful but also fun.  I look forward to my last week as being bittersweet.  I get to go home but I am going to miss my host family and the wonderful city of Queretaro.  Goodbye for now.

So this is it. This last Friday was the last day of the program and we had our goodbye dinner. It was sad and exciting. It was a little sad because I’ve made new friends that I will not get to see often. But it was also exciting because it was the conclusion of a wonderful experience. Although I would have loved to do ten weeks instead of five, I am excited to go home. I am also excited to be done with classes. This last week has been stressful with finals and getting ready to leave. I also made enchildas for my host family, which was very interesting because people here in Argentina do not eat chile. Now i’m staying in Buenos Aires for a little over a day before my flight leaves

I am incredibly glad that I chose Argentina as my study abroad destination. The stereotypes that I had encountered of Argentinians turned out to be wrong. I have met very nice people. I have learned of some social norms that I otherwise would not have learned and a different dialect of spanish. I have loved this experience and hope to some day return to Argentina.

This week has been much better than the last and I’ve finally begun to enjoy London. Probably what was the turning point was after talking to my parents on Sunday, I made a list of what I wanted to see and I’ve already crossed two things off of the list! On Monday evening, my friends and I headed to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens so I could finally see the Peter Pan statue in person. It was worth the trip! After 15 years of wanting to see it and it was wonderful! Following the statue, we found the Princess Diana’s Memorial and soaked our tired feet in it.
The field trips this week were to Hampton Court Palace and The Tempest (Shakespeare) and the Imperial War Museum to see the World War I exhibit (history). Both were good trips, the Palace was absolutely beautiful and full of so much history and the War Museum was very informative. The Tempest, however, was bad. Some of the characters were puppets and others were masks. It was too out there for me and left me more confused as ever.
Today I went out on my own for the second time and was finally able to master the tube! I went to the Twining’s Tea Shop and Museum and bought a rather cool gift for my big brother and then I wandered down to the main campus of King’s College, found the shop and bought a shirt to remember the school.
Tomorrow I head to Stonehenge and then Salisbury. It’s going to be great finally seeing the real Stonehenge after visiting the replica in Washington for many years.

~Kallan

Below in order: The Peter Pan Statue, Hampton Court Palace, and a Spitfire Airplane at the Imperial War Museum.

I know it is technically week 4 but I have been really busy doing homework so I will talk about week 3.  Last week was busy because of homework and  a lot of different events.  I had a lot of homework that took a lot of time to do but I also had a great week.  I went out with friends on Friday and on Saturday my friends and I went to San Miguel Allende all day.  I had a great time shopping in the tiny stores and going to the hot springs.  They were not what I expected because I thought they would be more open and under a waterfall.  I was a little sad at first but I had a blast swimming in the hot and cool water there.  All in all last week might have been stressful but I also had a great time spending time with friends.

My first week in London was alright, though I spent the majority of the time wanting to go home. It wasn’t that I disliked London or was having homesickness, it was the heat and jet lag. The first weekend was crazy. With too much stuff happening at one time, I was glad when classes started Monday. It was something normal in a sea of chaos. I really like my classes and my professors are nice. Last week also marked the beginning of field trips, both class related and not. For history, we visited the Churchill War Rooms and it was amazing being in such an important place and knowing that during the war, no one knew that Churchill and his team were working only a few feet under London. In English, we visited Shakespeare’s Globe, the Rose theatre, and Richard III with Martin Freeman. It was a really busy day, but a dream come true to a English major. On Friday, I went on the weekend excursion to Edinburgh, Scotland. On my gosh, Scotland is so beautiful and the weather was so nice, (it reminded me of Oregon). On Saturday it was raining and foggy, making everything more magical. I’d go back to Scotland any day.

~Kallan

Below in order: Winston Churchill, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, and foggy Scotland

Another busy week has passed and I am now on week four out of five, which is crazy to think about! School has been crazy busy and it has been a challenge to keep up on it all the time, but I still find time for fun things. This week, some friends and I saw “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Transformers 4” at the movie theater by my house. We watched “Dragon” in Spanish and the other in English. Together, both movies were only two bucks, which was exciting!

This weekend we went to a nearby city called San Miguel Allende. There, we saw a beautiful church, ate some delicious Italian food, and went swimming in a natural hot springs. Overall, I had a really great time in the city!

The next day at a study party, Nicolette I found some delicious Chinese food at the mall. It goes to show how diverse it is here in Mexico and you can find just about any kind of food! I also learned this week that I love nopales salad, also known as cactus salad. 

Another great week in Mexico! Over this past week we went to the movie theater for the evening and watched two movies. We watched How to Train Your Dragon 2 in spanish and Transformers 4 in english with spanish subtitles. It was fun to watch How to Train Your Dragon 2 in spanish because I have already seen it in english so it was interesting to hear how the sentences were phrased differently in spanish even though they essentially had the same meaning. Transformers was good as well and I found the spanish subtitles very useful when there were people speaking chinese. The rest of the week was fairly uneventful; lots of homework and school.

Saturday we went to San Miguel Allende for the day. We explored the central plaza, which included a huge church that looked more like a disney castle to me, ate some yummy food, and went to lots of shops filled with trinkets and other interesting things. We finished our time there at a hot springs resort.

On Sunday I went to church again and this time I brought two of the other girls with me. After the service there was a potluck so we stayed and ended up having a really good time. We tried a lot of new food and made some local friends that we will be spending time with later this week.

Only two weeks left and I am looking forward to all of the things I have left to do. We are coming up on a lot of tests and papers but I am not too worried. I know everything will work out. I am looking forward to coming home but will be sad to leave this beautiful city!