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Maybe I’m Nowhere Close to Cathedral-ed Out

Ely Cathedral Outside

Mark told us not to expect too much, we saw the cathedral at Glasgow, this would be about the same. Wrong. From the second the cathedral came into view we could tell it was massive, and from the second we walked through the (very) large doors we could tell that it was stunning. We wondered the premises for about 20 minute (waiting for our tour guide), the whole time delighting in the way the stone was bathed in warm late afternoon sunlight spilling in through the stained glass.

Inside Ely Cathedral

When our tour guide arrived, I could When our tour guide arrived I could tell right away we’d lucked out. Not a performer, John knew his stuff and could not have been happier to be sharing the information with us. He was thorough, interesting, and even funny. He took us around the main floor, explaining the columns and the windows and the intricate roofs that towered above us.

And then we entered the first stair case. The first of four, tiny staircases winding up the inside of the building, after one flight we landed on a balcony overlooking the main floor. After the next flight we emerged from what appeared to be a hobbit door on the roof of the main building. From there the city spread out below us and the cathedral huddled us in tightly. We entered another (ridiculously) small door and went up another (unbelievably) small staircase and what we saw there was frankly kind of boring. Huge wooden beams held up what was obviously the center tower we had seen from down below. Wooden panels covered in graffiti circled around, but what happened next took my breath away.

John reached in front of me and lifted up a huge metal latch and the wooden panel swung open revealing an angel on the other side and angel panels 360 degrees. Far, far below us the cathedral floor sprawled out covered in pews that looked like caterpillars they appeared so small. Directly above us we got a close up view of the ornate roof of the cathedral. It was so beautiful I just couldn’t stop smiling, like when you know you’re in the presence of something great and wonderful and you just can’t believe you are lucky enough to be there.

View Inside Tower

And as if I needed more of a reason to be blown away, John led us up another staircase that was even smaller than the last! At the top of this one we came out on the roof of the tower with the stained glass windows being the only thing higher than us. I knew God was on our side that day because right as we got up there the sun started to set over the city and the building and it was just gorgeous.

Sunset on Roof

I hope you take a while to check out the whole album from this mini-trip, maybe you can get a glimpse of the beauty I was blessed enough to take pictures of for you!

Real Homework and Adventurous Eats

February 4, 2011 / Molly Kestner / 1 Comment

This week we started working our way into a semi-normal schedule. I say semi because travel or homestay interrupts our schedule at least every two weeks. We began our internships and two of our classes and that means lots of reading! Some of it is interesting, some of it…not so much. It’ll be difficult to get done because it is super easy to get distracted in this house!

Family Bonding!

On Tuesday we headed outside of the city for the day for a team building retreat with the group and the CGE staff. Since I love my group, it was nice to spend a day getting to know everyone better. We were only the highway out of the city for a few minutes when we got off and encountered the gravel roads which dominate most of Namibia. It was certainly an adventure, especially navigating over the shallow rivers and streams. I’m pretty sure if it had rained while we were there that we wouldn’t have been able to get back!

Wednesday night, a few of us headed to Joe’s Beer House which is a popular tourist spot for trying game meat! I sampled zebra, ostrich, and oryx, all of which were pretty good! All three tasted a lot like beef from home. And for those reading at home, an oryx is a kind of antelope, my high school mascot! People do not eat most of these things on a regular basis, they eat the same meats we do in the states. It was a really cool restaurant and a fun night.

Ostrich, Zebra, and Oryx, oh my! (There's some crocodile and Kudu in there, too.)

Finally, last night we left for our urban homestay. My family is a mother, father, daughter (23), and two sons (19 and 20). It was just a quiet, laid back night, but I’m eager to get to know them better.

The quintessential German town.

January 30, 2011 / Hayden O'Shaughnessy / 0 Comments

View of Tubingen houses from the river.

Another amazing view of the houses of Tubingen along the river.

Remember me telling you in an earlier blog that Reutlingen was the quintessential German town? LIES!! Tubingen totally takes the cake. Tubingen is an adorable college town. It was one of the few places in Germany not destroyed during the war. All of the medieval aspects of the town are preserved. It has narrow cobble stones streets that wind around the town. According to our Professor, Herr Springer, it is super easy to get lost if you don’t know what you are doing. Veronica, Katy, and I loved Tubingen so much that have been there twice since we got to Germany. It is just gorgeous! The first time it was rainy and Herr Springer took us on a short tour and told us a little bit of the history of the town. Herr Springer is our Art History professor and he is pretty awesome! He lives in Tubingen and has done some pretty interesting things in his lifetime. He crossed the US from Boston to Los Angeles hitchhiking, and he won a semi-offical race contest on the big water slide of the open-air pool in Tubingen.

Frau Brixner cutting Nate's food. Nate broke his arm and isn't great with utensils.

The same day Herr Springer took us on the tour of Tubingen, we had our first faculty dinner where we met the Brixners for the first time. We all LOVE the Brixners!!! They are our German language professors and are a ton of fun! The Brixners have been with the program since its beginning! Our group is Reutlingen-87, just to give you an idea of how long the Brixners have been with the program. I have Frau Brixner for my German 101 class and she is a hoot! There are only 4 of us in her class so we all get a lot of personal attention. The other day she asked me to “springen sie!” which means to jump. That is the first time a professor has asked me to jump during class. I wish I knew how to say “how high?” in German.

Graffiti house

Katy, Veronica, and I went back to Tubingen the next weekend when it was warm and sunny. During our second trip, we ate at this cute little Italian restaurant, and the food was delicious. After spliting a banana split we continued our walk around the Tubingen and took a ton of pictures! We will definitely be returning again soon!

Welcome to the future…

January 30, 2011 / Hayden O'Shaughnessy / 1 Comment

Mercedes-Benz museum view from the outside.

Professor Szaniszlo took us on a class trip to Stuggart, capital of Baden-Württemberg. When we arrived we took a tour of the Mercedes-Benz museum. The beginning of the movie Get Smart with Ann Hathaway and Steve Carell pretty much exemplifies the atmosphere of the Mercedes-Benz museum. When I walked into the state-of-the-art facility I seriously thought I had become a secret agent and was entering headquarters. It was SWEET!!! It was probably the coolest museum that I have ever been to. The museum was modeled after Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim in New York and was finished in 2006. The entire building is state-of-the-art; every building material is top-of-the-line, even down to the cement which has a higher concentration of cement than the normal stuff making the walls feel like marble. Pretentious much?…I think so! Our tour guide dressed like a secret agent and took us to the top floor using a futuristic looking elevator where the walls were lined with the leather in a Mercedes Benz. Seriously, look up pretentious in the dictionary, you will find Mercedes Benz.

We only had around an hour and forty-five minutes to spend in the museum, and according to the guide one could spend more than forty-two hours in the museum in order to see everything! Crazy, I know, but totally true. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of battery early on during the tour so I didn’t get many pictures, but I took a lot of mental ones! Click!

Futuristic elevator we took to the top floor where we started our tour with our guide, the secret agent.

After the Mercedes Benz tour, we got lunch at the train station and then we were off to take a bus tour of Stuggart. Our tour had both English and German speaking people so our guide spoke in both languages! First she would speak in German, and then she would start speaking in English! I was flabbergasted! Even though we had an awesome guide, I regrettably suck at bus tours. I tend to fall asleep within five minutes of the tour; I think it’s a combination of sitting down, the moving bus, and listening to a person with an accent that just puts me straight to sleep. Ask my parents about our trip to Ireland… So, I missed like two-thirds of that tour. I did wake up just in time to go up in the TV tour. I don’t remember how tall it was (I was asleep for that part of the tour), but the view was gorgeous. The sun had just come out and you could see for miles. I had to take a mental picture for that part of the tour too. Click!

The World of Beatles and Potter

January 30, 2011 / hannahbauer / 0 Comments

The Great Hall Christ's Church

Four day weekends are a magical thing. This week we decided to use them to our advantage in a new way. Instead of traveling from the second classes ended Thursday to late Sunday night, we left Friday morning and got back Saturday night. Only staying one night in a foreign city instead of three really cut back on expenses and having some down time in our beautiful “home” city of Cambridge really cut down on the brain damage. We were still able to see a lot of Oxford and Liverpool, even though we only spent one day in each location.

The Staircase from Harry Potter

On Friday we caught a train early in the morning, even though Thursday’s late night had us begging for more sleep. Luckily, trains aren’t horrible locations to catch up on some lost shut eye. We got into Oxford right around noon and had lunch at a pub called The Grapes (turns out there is one in Liverpool and in Cambridge too!). Then we walk to Christ Church where they did some filming for Harry Potter. Being a big fan, it was kind of awesome to see the staircase where the first years line up and the dining hall that the Great Hall was based on. After looking at the rest of the campus and walking around the town a bit we decided we were happy to be “from” Cambridge and could start calling Oxford “The Other Place,” like the Cambridge locals do.

After deciding we wanted to wait until Liverpool for dinner, we got on the train. BAD idea. By the time we got into Liverpool and checked into our AWESOME hotel, it was almost ten o’clock and we were sooooo hungry. We finally decided on a little Italian joint because most of the pubs’ kitchens had already closed. The food at the Italian restaurant was really good, albeit a little expensive. We splurged a little, but aw well. Then we went back to our hotel for some much needed cuddling, snuggling, and sleep.

Our Beautiful King Bed

The next day I reluctantly tore myself from my center spot in the comfy king bed and got ready for the day. We went to The Beatles’ Story which is a museum dedicated to– you guessed it– The Beatles. After learning as much as possible about the four biggest rockstars, um, ever, we went to go find lunch. With the help of our own personal map reader, Lauren, we went into The Cavern where The Beatles supposedly played the majority of their show. Ok, it was only a replica built from the same bricks as the original Cavern, but it was still cool. Sadly, they didn’t serve food so we ended up eating a couple doors down at another Grapes! Now this was pretty cool, they had pictures posted of The Beatles sitting in the seats of that very pub! Plus the food was cheap and tasty, my kind meal.

At The Beatles' Story

After a little more walking and another museum, I was glad to be on another train heading for King’s Cross and before I knew it, I was out. Before too long we were back in our temporary home, which is starting to feel like a real home more and more every day. My seven comrades and I had figured out that Oxford shied in comparison to it and the Liverpool(ians?) were extraordinarily kind. Then Sunday I slept in til noon and made myself crepes. Man I love studying abroad.

Be sure to check out the rest of my album here!

It’s hot here.

January 30, 2011 / Molly Kestner / 1 Comment

And it’s wonderful. Everyone got a little pink/tan this weekend. It has actually stormed significantly every day since we’ve been here, but at least half the day is usually sunny and warm.

Namibia is still beautiful and Windhoek is just a lovely little city. When I say little, I just mean smaller than Jo’burg which was HUGE. There is still quite an expanse to explore here both by foot and taxi. And of course there’s the rest of the country which I cannot wait to see as well. Just to give you and understanding, the country of Namibia is twice the size of California but it’s population is only 2 million people. That’s less people than live in just the city of Los Angeles. It’s even hard for us to wrap our heads around, especially since we’ve just been in one of the only major cities in the country which contains a lot of people.

Our time here hasn’t been quite as packed as South Africa was, which is good, because I don’t think I could keep up much longer with a schedule like that. Thursday and Friday we did some touring of the city, especially Katatura which remains almost 100% black since apartheid, similar to Soweto. (Namibia was under South African rule until 1990)

Saturday we attended our first soccer game in Africa! It was the Namibia Women’s National team versus the Angola women. We met a local student who had been a guide for us around Katatura and walked to the game with him because his sister (who is only 16!) is on the team. Luckily I grabbed my raincoat before leaving because of course the rain started just in time for the game. And apparently they play through lightning and thunder here. There weren’t a ton of people there so we were able to sit under the overhang and keep a little dry. Despite low attendance, the crowd was still wild and loud and had plenty of vuvuzelas! The kids at the game were so lively and excited. The game was pretty exciting, but it ended in a 0-0 tie.

Last night we went out for our first big night on the town to celebrate two birthdays in the group. We went to the bar up the street and then to a club called Zanzibar. I think of 20 of us went dancing and we had a great time!

I just keep thinking about how we’ve only been here two weeks and I feel like we’ve done and seen and learned so much and it blows my mind! This program is definitely what I wanted. What we’re doing is so beyond just site-seeing and appreciating culture. We are actually placed into the culture through homestays and are pushed to see the issues in this region through so many different perspectives. There were definitely other study abroad programs that I would’ve been happy to go on, but I don’t know if they would’ve made me think as much as I have here. However, if you’re a prospective student, regardless of the program, if you even think you want to study abroad then look into it. I’m only two weeks in, but I know I’m going to learn way more here than I could ever learn in a classroom. (Too bad I had to write that french paper on the importance of travel before I came here!)

Tomorrow we start our internships! I was placed with the Namibia Development Trust which is an NGO that focuses on promoting rural development. It seems right up my alley. I’m excited and nervous to see what my time there brings and I’m hoping I gain some good experience!

¿Me puedes hablar en español? Ok, thanks.

January 29, 2011 / Nick Derda / 0 Comments

My gringo-ness at it's finest. And I wonder why people don't think I'm Mexican. haha.

After being here for almost a month, the initial shock of being in a foreign country has more or less worn off. There are still those moments when the fact that I’m in Mexico hits me like a ton of bricks, but more or less I’ve basically come to accept and respect the cultural differences that exist here.

Something that has been troubling me over the past few weeks is the fact that I have been relying on English way too much. The problem is that everyone here speaks English. Whether it be my suitemates, my Mexican friends, or even people at restaurants, everyone sees that I’m clearly not Mexican and they speak to me in English. At first this didn’t bother me that much because I thought that people were just trying to be helpful, but now it’s just downright annoying. I came here to speak Spanish. I need to speak Spanish in order to get better at it.

I have heard various reasons for why it seems that “foreigners” are able to pick up English with much greater ease than native English speakers can learn other languages. English is supposedly easier to learn conversationally, while foreign languages in the U.S. are taught through lectures and not through practice. Another theory is that English as a second language is taught much earlier than foreign languages are taught in the United States. Someone else suggested to me that English-language media, like movies, tv shows, books, etc., is so globally used that even this exposure primes people in non-English speaking countries to speak it with greater ease.

I haven’t been really sold on any one of these theories, as they all have certain flaws. And they don’t seem to explain to me why my roommate can speak English almost fluently after only taking one semester of it in college. I’ve been taking Spanish for eight years and he still runs circles around me.

The conclusion I’ve come to within the last few days is that I’m just going to have to accept that for some reason other people are able to learn foreign languages easier than myself. I’ve resigned myself to force myself to speak Spanish as much as possible. If native speakers speak to me in English, then I am just going to have to respond to them in Spanish. If they make fun of the way I pronounce things or of my gringo accent, then I just have to remember that they make mistakes when they speak to me in English and that I’m never going to get better unless I just ignore them.

The other thing that I have started to do is just telling people that I want them to speak to me in Spanish. I can’t count how many times I’ve said, “Me puedes hablar en español,” in the last week. It’s been working slightly, but as soon as they say something that I don’t understand, people start talking to me in English. I am just going have to be more proactive with all of this. Hopefully I will walk away with this semester with improved Spanish skills.

Hamburg Harbor

January 28, 2011 / Hayden O'Shaughnessy / 2 Comments

This is the view of Hamburg Harbor at night.

Welcome to the World!

January 27, 2011 / Lydia Mertz / 1 Comment

Yesterday, on a cold January day in an Indiana hospital, my cousin Nadia was born. Although I haven’t seen her yet, she’s gotta be a beauty. I’m so excited and thrilled at the new life that has been given to our family. Despite the miles that separate my family and me, I still feel a connection to her.

It’s a sad fact but my family has never been that close. However, my experience in Mexico has taught me the importance of family. I remember sitting in my management class last semester and being asked by classmates (except for a girl from Germany, everybody was Mexican) how many times I saw my extended family. I mentioned once a year if lucky. The reaction across the room was a series of gasps. It would be like telling a Mexican that tacos are the crappiest food on the planet and that mariachi should be banned forever.

Granted my family has problems and they are far from perfect but who cares? They’re family. After visiting and staying with the families here in Mexico, I’ve learned the importance of unity among family members. Every time I visit a family in Mexico, it always inspires me to be a better daughter, aunt, cousin, niece, granddaughter and anything else that falls into that category.

I can’t wait meet to meet my beautiful cousin Nadia and see ALL of my family again. It’s painful being away from everybody but I keep them in my heart and think about them often. Mexico teaches the importance of life and to never take it for granted. Despite the hardships, it’s still beautiful and worth living for-especially when there’s new life. Welcome to the world, Nadia.

Saludos

Pretoria and Windhoek…finally!

January 26, 2011 / Molly Kestner / 0 Comments

Monday morning after we left our homestay and had a reflection session, we hit the road for Pretoria which is the capital of South Africa. Pretoria is much smaller than Johannesburg, but quite beautiful.

Tuesday morning we first visited the Voortrekker Monument. It is a very large dedication to the Voortrekkers, who were Dutch colonists that decided to leave the cape for the interior of the country when they got fed up with the British presence. They encountered numerous challenges and especially clashed with the Zulus. The monument is 40 meters high and 40 meters wide and sits on top of a hill overlooking the city.

Next up was Freedom Park which sits about 2 hilltops away from the first monument. The park is still under construction, but what is done so far is a beautifully designed dedication to the past struggle and present freedoms of all peoples in South Africa. From the highest point in the park we could see many important representations of the new South Africa. The Voortrekker Monument could be seen in the distance as well as two different forts, downtown Pretoria, and two universities. It is peaceful and symbolic and looks like it will be even more impressive when the work is done.

We finished our day with a stop at the U.S. Embassy. We spoke with two women who are career foreign service officers about their jobs and the embassy’s role in South Africa.

This morning we got up too early to get to the airport and fly to NAMIBIA! I was very ready for this. South Africa was more wonderful than I could have imagined, but I was ready to stop living out of a suitcase and start settling down a little. Of course, these next 3 months are still filled with travel and sight-seeing and homestays, but now we at least have a constant place to call home here in Windhoek. The drive from the airport was beautiful; very stereotypical Africa. Rolling hills of green with small trees and bushes and some mountains in the distance. We sounded super touristy when we all yelled in excitement about the baboons and giraffes we saw on the side of the road! I’m so happy to finally be here!

I wanted to post pictures in the last post, but I ran out of internet time. However, now that we’re in our house I have lots of free internet! So go check out my Picasa to catch up my South African adventures!

Student Stories from Around the World