Holy Sh*t it's an Eve update

Well it's been a long time since my last real update-- 51 days to be exact, which is NOTHING in geological time, also known as Africa time, Caribbean time etc ;) ... I guess the last you heard from me I was chillin' in Cape Town--developing my conflict resolution/mediation skills, partying like a rockstar to make up for my antisocial behavior during the first semester, working diligently on my tan, and taking excessive amounts of pictures to document the whole thing... I don't want to bore you with the details of my 3-week stay in South Africa (ooo I met Ex-President and Nobel laureate FW de Klerk!!), but needless to say, I had a great time and I can't wait to go back--soon hopefully!

You all saw most of my pics online and received no narrative from me to explain 'em, but they were pretty self-explanatory. Quick summary: lots of random white people (other ppl in the program), some Africans (some program ppl, and also my wonderful homestay family from last year--Tina has grown sooo much!), beautiful pics of Cape Town (easy to take great pics of such a gorgeous city), scenery from the townships (not beautiful in quite the same way), a 'toga party,' an essentially talentless talent show, and endless pics of nights out in the Mother City with South African friends (oh and some crazy Namibians).

Anyway after Cape Town, I stopped over in the UK for a few days to reconnect with friends in Oxford and London. While the stay was basically a long weekend, it was, as always, good times with lots of alcohol and uncooperative weather.

After the little stopover, I came back through NYC for 48h before turning around and leaving again (this, I believe, is what is now known as "pulling an Eve")... This time the destination was Montreal for the McGill MUN conference. It was great to be back in Montreal, a little taste of Europe on this side of the Atlantic. Plus the weather was really warm! Wait, let me qualify that, it was really warm for Montreal in January, which means it was 30ºF/0ºC all weekend--which is tropical compared to lows of -15ºF/-45ºC in previous years.
Well the conference was a success (plus I got to very briefly see Ivan) and I drove the team back to Smith in the white Smith College soccer mom minivan--hot, I know...



And then the spring semester started--my LAST semester as an undergrad, which is terrifying/exciting/overwhelming and uber busy as usual. Actually that's a little bit of a lie because I've had a rather chill start to the semester... The second weekend of the semester I had a fantastic mini-bday party in NYC at Baraonda with a representative slice of the NYC crew...




And then the next day I flew off to the French Alps for a week. It's my family's traditional annual week of skiing in the most beautiful place in the world... So what if I missed a week of classes? It was a 'sudden family emergency,' and I just HAD to go for a week ;-) The skiing wasn't fab bc there wasn't much snow (as opposed to the record-breaking amount that was dumped on NYC just as I was leaving--the ultimate definition of IRONY), but it was great to spend time with the fam, eat great food, breathe the fresh mtn air, and keep partying like a rockstar etc...



And now it's back to the grind of the SC. More from me soon!