Happy Halloween everyone! I had a great time today and I hope everyone else did too!

Tomorrow I’m starting the third week of my internship at a non-profit organization and I love it so far. I’m learning so much about the non-profit industry and it’s pretty exciting! I’ve already learned about web design, marketing, PR and fundraising...all stuff that can help me find a job when I come back to California! My coworkers are all awesome people who are very willing to help me out if I have questions or problems, and I even get my own office! I’ve never had my own office before, it’s so awesome. Granted, it’s also the storage room, but it’s an office and I’ll take it! :)

I couldn’t make up a more bizarre location for my work if I tried. It’s basically in the middle of nowhere surrounded by trees and grass. Because there is so much trees and grass, it’s the perfect habitat for one of the most deadly spiders in the entire world called the funnel web spider. They are ridiculously huge and we killed one in our office the other day. We also have spiders that live in the trees and fall onto people’s heads as they walk by! Every single tree I pass, I look up haha. Those ones aren’t dangerous, but who wants huge spiders on their heads?!

The most interesting part of my work’s location is that it’s next to a mental institution and the patients are free to walk around…I’ve seen some very odd things. We also have a mental institution for the criminally insane, but that’s down at the other side of the street and they are locked up of course. :)

One thing that I can say is that I am never bored! And I really do love my work so everything is completely worth it.

I think I mentioned in a previous blog post that I live in Little Italy…today there was a huge Italian festival right outside of my door and on my street. I literally walked out my front door and there it was. Hundreds and hundreds of people have been here today and there is authentic Italian food, clothing, music and even Italian books. I love stuff like this, I thought it was really cool! I spent the day out in the sun with some friends and eating lots of different Italian foods.

I’m going to be moving out of this apartment within the next few weeks to be closer to my work…But I’m going to be moving to the city, which will be so much fun! And it’s for the same price as I’m paying now so I think it’ll be worth it. It takes me an hour and a half to get to work, so this will help a lot. We’ll see what happens.

Lots more holidays coming up and of course I wish I could be home with family, but at least I have friends here to celebrate with. I have two options for thanksgiving; I will either make dinner with my American friends here, or I’ll make a Thanksgiving dinner for everyone in the hostel. No one at my hostel has ever celebrated Thanksgiving before, and they’ve only seen it in the movies so I thought it would be cool to celebrate with them. They keep asking me tons of questions about it.

Not sure what I’ll do, I’m just glad I have amazing friends here to celebrate with!

Miss everyone back home, hope all is well.

Matt