And so...

Hi all!

I intended to sit down and write a long time ago, but my schedule (read: laziness) got the better of me. So, here goes. Like Christen, I love hearing about what everyone is doing, and I wish Letters Home were all public (Karmel: I loved your thoughts on magic, and my subsequent letter was actually a response of sorts. I am, of course, in the birthplace of Harry Potter). After such an intense semester, I miss everyone!

I think my experiences here in Europe are a bit different from those in, say, Costa Rica or Africa; there is so much to do here that my work feels secondary at times, but I really want to know what life is like elsewhere. I just rolled in on the Eurostar from a weekend in Paris a few hours ago-I had less than 48 hours to conquer the major points of a huge and amazing city-and I am pretty sure that my new goal is to spend some time in France at some point. My flatmate and I took a great night bike tour, which included a cruise down the Seine with a great view of the brightly-lit Eiffel Tower. Interesting story: I am walking down the street on Sunday morning and walk right past three people who went to my high school. Weird?

Aside from Paris, I have visited Prague (heading down to Seville in a few weeks) and tried to accomplish as much as possible in London. It requires a go-go-go approach, and I now feel like I have lived here forever.

As far as work goes, I am not doing at all what I imagined. I didn’t get IRB approval until 4.5 weeks in, which was pretty rough, but in addition to doing interviews I am also working on planning an event for the graduates of the MEND program. It isn’t nearly the scale of Karmel’s amazing festival, but it is all me, which is hard given that I don’t know anything about England and how things work (or even geography-everything ends in –ham or –shire-that has been a blast). We are using a cricket club field to hold sessions on street dance, Nordic walking, football (known to us as soccer), and food competitions. I am really excited about it, but I didn’t realize how difficult, yet fun, it is to organize the details for parties. Makes me wonder how anyone pulls off huge carnivals or sporting events or even weddings.

Well, keep in touch everyone, and please post pictures as well. Due to the obvious limitations of typing story after story, we are going to need some major debriefing sessions when we get back to Duke.

As the English say at the end of every conversation, Cheers!