Yesterday we went on an excursion to Saint Guilhem le Désert It was nice to get out of Montpellier. I like the city, and my neighborhood a bit out of the city is calm and pretty. But it was fun to experience something new, and to see more of Southern France. The name of this tiny village, home to 250 residents (but usually busy with tourists), refers to Saint Guilhem, and his search for a spiritual desert. There is plenty of water around the village. In fact, there are little [...]

Means water. Which is certainly something I needed a lot of today. Today we embarked on our first adventure outside of Fes. The journey included a trip to see Romain ruins at Volobulis, a stop in Moulay Idriss to see the town that Idris I founded, and to Meknes, the town where he founded Morocco as we know it. And it was really, really hot. Morocco is not all desert, as people often imagine. Rural Moroccans subsist on agriculture, and Morocco exports much food to the European Union. Driving through [...]

This saturday marked our second excursion! Our first stop was a town called Aigues-Mortes. It was built during the middle ages as a fortified town in the delta of the Rhone. Then, in 791, Charlemagne built an Abbey there in order to control the production of sea salt, which is still produced there in masses today. Aigues-Mortes encapsulated by walls. Those giant white piles in the background are piles of salt! The water is pink due to the same algae that make flamingos pink. In the 13th century Aigues-Mortes was [...]

On Friday April 13th, we had our last cooking class for our Sustainable Foods class at Sergio’s house. This rainy, gloomy day provided the perfect atmosphere for staying inside and cooking. We began with our usual morning cornetto and caffe, and then really got going. We all separated into our groups and started to work on the 3 different dishes. One of the groups went to the stove-top to start frying the bread for our appetizer. While they busy with that, some of us started to work on the ragu [...]

In late February I went with school on a study tour to Barcelona! Early Thursday morning, we flew out of Rome on AliItalia Airlines. We arrived in Barcelona around 11AM and immediately checked into our beautiful four star hotel. After checking in and grabbing a quick bite to eat at a local restaurant, we went on a 4 hour walking tour of Barcelona with a local guide who spoke English. We began at the beautiful Cathedral of Santa Eulalia and made our way all the way through the city. We [...]

It has been decided!! Internship with Astha in two weeks.  The program is stationed in Udaipur, about a 9 hour train ride south of Jaipur. This means that I will no longer be living in Jaipur, so for anyone who wanted to send me anything, I will be getting a new address in a couple weeks. However, I will only be at my internship until April 15th or so and it takes approximately three weeks for letters to reach me from the U.S. Astha, literally meaning “faith” in Hindi, is [...]

Just to start off, I would like to say how much I love the country of Senegal.  The people here are so amazing, the countryside and beaches are gorgeous, the clothes are so cool, the food is delicious.  I could go on and on.  I realized last week that I was half way done with my time in Senegal and I freaked out.  I don’t ever want to leave! Of course I miss you, burritos family and friends, but I just wish you could come to Senegal instead of me having to [...]

Another great weekend getaway to the very peaceful nation of Uruguay. Last Friday, my class boarded a ferry and crossed the Rio de la Plata to the historic town of Colonia del Sacramento. The town of about 22,000 people was founded in 1680 by Portugal. Since then, the country has gone back and forth for centuries between Spanish and Portuguese rule. In 1828, Uruguay became an independent nation, with Spanish as it’s official language. Colonia, the oldest city in Uruguay, holds much historical significance and the city itself has been [...]

On Friday my class hopped on a bus and headed West to the antique Estancia Los Talas, a traditional cattle ranch located on the outskirts of the city of Luján, Argentina. The ranch was founded in 1824 and the granddaughter of the original owner still resides there with several family members. Everything inside the ranch house was nearly all original and very upscale. A huge library is also on the ranch. The library houses thousands of books, some dating back to the 1500s. Today, the collection of rare books are [...]

Yesterday my group took a trip through the Andes Mountains. Our goal was to find snow…and we did! When we woke up at 7 a.m. it was already almost 80 degrees outside and sunny. I hardly believed our group leader when she told me to bring my North Face, one of my warmest fleece jackets, but after riding on the bus for several hours I started to shiver. We stopped on the way up the mountains at two places. First, to see this view… and second, to take a closer [...]

It was another beautiful week in Italy! Monday we celebrated the 4th of July.  It was a very bizarre to celebrate a holiday like that in a foreign country, where it was just another day for the Italians.  It was also weird not being in America to partake in Independence Day Traditions—no fireworks, no parades, no family get-togethers, no barbeques!  We did what we could though to make the evening memorable—and memorable it was!  For lunch, a group of people went to McDonald’s (one of the very few American “restaurants” [...]

France is known for its gastronomic traditions. It’s the world of amuse-bouches that are about 5€/bite and where every region has their own signature plat. That being said, last weekend, my program took us on a field trip to discover the cuisine of our region, Languedoc Roussillon. St. Gély du Fesc – Les Oliviers du Mas des Vautes Just north of Montpellier, we arrived by bus at Les Oliviers du Mas des Vautes, a somewhat small olive farm that produces high quality olive oil. Although the trees themselves are from [...]

This week, instead of five days of classes we took a two day (three night) field trip to the Shekawati Region of Rajasthan. Located in the Thar Desert, this region is known for its elaborate Haveli’s (mansions owned by wealthy merchents of the region who covered its walls with beaitful, if not eclectic paintings) and subsistence farming. The theme of our out-trip was organic farming, and we visited a number of demonstrations of using sustainable methodologies for life in one of the state’s harshest environments.  A wonderful example was our hotel, [...]

Over the next couple of posts, all of which I hope to have published by the end of this week, I am going to go over what I have been doing for the past month, which I promise has been a lot. I am afraid that I wont be able to remember it all, but I can try to get the highlights, post a few pictures, and do the best I can. Just to give you all an Idea of what I have been up to, here is a brief [...]

About 2 weeks ago I went on a class field trip to an Estancia in San Antonio de Areco, about an hour outside of Buenos Aires. This was the second field trip to an Estancia. The first estancia was amazing. We had an asado, which consisted of a large cookout with a different types of meats and wine. The food just keep coming. There was a point where I felt so sick because I ate too much food. The problem was that the food was too delicious for me to [...]