Valpo Voyager

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Riding the Homesick Falls

November 13, 2018 / studyabroad / 0 Comments

Author: Rae Erickson

Location: Windhoek, Namibia

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

This morning, three letters from my friends arrived in my mail slot. While I knew that one was hopefully coming, I wasn’t sure if it would make it, so seeing three waiting for me was an absolutely beautiful surprise. Being abroad for the past few months has changed me significantly, but it also has brought me even closer to my roots of who I know that I am. Dealing with mental health struggles in another country is intimidating to say the least, and missing my friends and family has been extremely difficult, but amidst these struggles, I am forced to remember why I am here, everything I am learning, and how important the people are to me that I hold close to my heart when they cannot be close to me physically. My time here has transformed me so much that I have begun going by a new nickname, Rae, that suits me in a million different ways! Without being on another continent, and meeting the people I have, I can’t say I would be the person I feel myself becoming today. This past week was fall break in Windhoek, but it was also a kind of spring break, because of the reverse seasons!! A few friends and I journeyed to Victoria Falls in Zambia, where we swam next to beautiful rainbows and saw little pockets of God. Even though the waves of homesickness have been as great as the crashing rapids of the Zambezi River, I know that this is where I am meant to be. Being in this other worldly place was truly a wild contrast to the experience of the week prior, when we stayed in northern Namibia for our rural homestay! Being in Outapi was one of the hardest things that I have ever done, but it was also one of the most rewarding. Throughout my whole time in this country, I have realized over and over again how strong and lucky that I really am. Prior to my departure in August, I was terrified of what was to come. Every day that I am here, I know that my little vial of bravery is inching upwards. Every day that I am here, I become more educated about how the injustices of the world are often covered up, how much I really have, and where my passions are leading me.

In Outapi, my homestay family had five loving children and two welcoming parents. The father of the family was the Vice Head of the village, and we talked at length about his responsibilities, as well as the accessibility of healthcare in his village. Because health services are so available in the US, it was heartbreaking but also incredibly eye opening to see firsthand how not everywhere on the planet has this luxury at their fingertips. I will always remember the hugs and company of the two little girls in particular, Alina and Monika, when reflecting on this time of my journey here. Even though the littlest one did not speak a lot of English, she squeaked out the cutest “THANK YOU!” once I gave her the necklace I made her on my final day in their home. Sitting around the campfire and singing songs in Oshiwambo and English will be something I will hold with me throughout the rest of my life, forever and ever.

The last thing I want to touch on for this blog is my experience in Etosha National Park. We drove into the park and immediately saw thousands of zebras! Passat, the driver for CGEE, has a passion for game drives, and senses creatures coming out of the darkness like no one I have ever met. On our first night in the park, we stayed in a chalet, and visited a watering hole. There were tons of friends that came to visit, emerging timidly out of the night to drink while we all watched as quietly as possible. A giraffe, two rhinos, three zebras, and an entire herd of elephants joined the site, creating a moment charged with power, spirituality, and grace. The next night, we camped before embarking on our long journey back to Windhoek. The calm presence of the animals was exactly what we needed before returning back to CGEE’s home base!

Hello, Goodbye to Liverpool

November 9, 2018 / studyabroad / 0 Comments

Author: Emma Hecht

Location: Liverpool, England

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

I’ve always been a pretty big fan of The Beatles. So, my friend Claire and I bought the $77 , 9 hour bus tickets to Liverpool for the weekend for a Beatles tour. We got in at 6:30 am and were exhausted from a good night of restless sleep. It was also about 30 degrees Fahrenheit and we were in jean jackets and leggings. So, we found the nearest Starbucks, which opened at 7 am, ordered hot chocolates and went to their upstairs lounge. We stayed there for a couple hours, warming up and planning our day and, of course, napping, until everything opened up. After finally leaving Starbucks, we wandered around a huge outlet mall (mostly looking at shoes) until our Beatles tour.

On the tour, the guide, who talked quickly and in a relatively strong accent, told us all about how the Beatles started, their drummers before Ringo Starr, their managers, and their childhoods. We drove past the childhood houses of each of the four. And stopped at Paul’s and George’s.

Here I am in front of George’s childhood home:

We also stopped by Penny Lane (and got to see most of the things that Paul sings about in “Penny Lane”):

Strawberry Fields was another stop. It’s not a strawberry farm but was a Salvation Army children’s home, which is now closed.

After the tour, Claire and I went to the Cavern Club, a nightclub that is the “birthplace of the Beatles,” where the first started playing and became popular. We didn’t stay for very long, but long enough to hear the band play “Twist and Shout.” We headed to the Hard Day’s Night Hotel, where we heard from our tour guide we could get Beatles themed drinks.

We were tired from all that sitting on the tour bus and sitting in the hotel bar, so we decided to head back to our Airbnb for a good night’s sleep. As we settled into bed, a wasp crawled onto my computer screen. As amateur wasp handlers, Claire and I asked our Airbnb host, Lilian, if there was anything she had that would kill a wasp. Lilian, a champ, came right upstairs, trapped the wasp under a mug, and let it out the window. In the morning, she served us a great breakfast, gave us recommendations on where to go in town, and drove us to the train station. 10/10 recommend Lilian’s Airbnb.

Sunday was a little more relaxed. We walked around the city for a while and ended up going to a cat café! None of the cats were really very interested in us, but we had more hot chocolate, so it worked out.

The next stop was the Liverpool Cathedral. It’s a beautiful cathedral, but also has one extremely unique feature. Underneath their lovely stained glass window, there is a pink neon sign. It reads “I Felt You And I Knew You Loved Me.”

Our last landmark stop in Liverpool before taking the bus back to Cambridge was the Radio City Tower, a radio and observation tower. It used to serve as a revolving restaurant but was closed due to health concerns. Now you can still go up in it (which we did!) but they’ve replaced a sit-down restaurant with a vending machine, and the tower no longer spins.

Goats and Cheetahs

November 7, 2018 / studyabroad / 0 Comments

Author: Rae Erickson

Location: Namibia

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

As an avid animal lover, I was in paradise when my urban homestay family brought me to their Satanslogch farm. Even just the journey there was something I had not experienced before, since it was truly up and down through the mountains on just a faintly distinguished gravel road. When we arrived at the camp, which is near Daan Viljoen Dam, and they told me I could hold as many goats as I desired!!! My joy only mounted when I saw that they had over one hundred. I do not support zoos in the US, (or anywhere, for that matter), because I do not believe that animals should be kept in captivity unless they need rehabilitation or additional care in order to survive. The opportunity to be around adorable creatures without contributing to a cause I do not agree with was beautiful, and the baby goats’ expressions were hilarious.

Later in the week, my cohort head to N/a’an ku sê Wildlife Sanctuary as a fieldtrip for our Environment and Sustainability course. We rode through grasslands and saw wild dogs, lions, baboons, and cheetahs. We learned about how the tear markings on many animal’s faces are for hunting purposes, to help them see better at night. Among information about conservation efforts happening at the lodge, they also shared with us that they have been trying to aid the San community in Windhoek, as they are often marginalized. While this is done with good intentions, there is some debate about whether this organization is capitalizing on, or exploiting at all, the San people’s culture.

Amongst these outings, I also found myself repetitively coming back to my creativity journal to work on an art piece that was requested from me by a man named Papa at Katutura’s Arts Center. He was wearing a leopard top hat, and talked at length about how his spirituality is not something he often feels the need to pursue, but is simply something that is inside of him. He elaborated by saying it also comes forth in his music, artistic expression, and everyday life. The biggest takeaway from this meeting and discussion is that you must seek your faith or spirituality in whatever you do, not just reflective activities.

My drawing is titled “The Alien Bloodline” because even though this was a very intriguing conversation, it was also quite overwhelming. He directed most of his attention at me, the only white person present, and when I admitted, ashamed, that I did not know a lot about my mother bloodline, he referred to this confusion or tendency to be unsure about your first roots as an “alien culture”. I struggled to not feel offended and be defensive, (which is easy to do so much of the time as a foreigner in another country), but understood what he meant when emphasizing the importance of knowing where you come from. I agree with his belief that your roots, or DNA, or whatever you want to call your heritage, is something that is ingrained inside of you and contributes largely to who you are. While he meant that you need to know in a literal sense, I think that sometimes, it is okay to know in more intuitive ways, such as through your relationships with your extended and immediate family, and what comes out of your hands when you are thoughtful in your personal creativity.

Art has sustained me in my darkest moments, and for that reason, I have created an account with the sole mission to raise money for art supplies and projects at the orphanage I am doing an internship with. The inaccessibility of art in various communities is heartbreaking to me, so I set up an Instagram account to spread publicity for Hope Village with a GoFundMe account as a space dedicated solely to art donations. If you feel it in your heart to give, please click the following link:

https://www.gofundme.com/n44h69-hope-village&rcid=r01-153751773083-2bfc9654b4cf4537&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w

If you don’t have the resources to donate right now, please help spread the word by following their the new account hope.village.namibia on IG, finding them on Fb, or sharing the link!!

Winston Churchill Childhood Home

November 5, 2018 / studyabroad / 0 Comments

Author: Ulises E. Hernandez

Location: Woodstock, UK

Pronouns: He/Him/His

On October 7th, Our British Life and Culture class had the opportunity to visit the Blenheim Palace. This Palace, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful in England due to its amazing gardens, well-kept building, and also by its location outside of the city. During our class trip, we had the chance to walk through a section of the palace and through many acres of beautiful gardens. After going through the Palace, we were able to learn a lot of interesting facts about how the Palace has played an important role in the history of the United Kingdom.

The first interesting aspect of the Palace is that it was the childhood home of Winston Churchill. This man not only played an important role in England during the Second World War, but he also had a lot of moral and ethical influences on the rest of the world due to his one of a kind way of thinking. The Palace was awarded as a gift to John Churchill due to his military accomplishments in the Battle of Blenheim.

Another interesting aspect of the Palace is the fact that it’s the only Palace in the United Kingdom in which its residents are not part of the Royal family. The Blenheim Palace has been occupied and as mentioned earlier, by the Dukes of Marlborough, which are the decedents of Winston Churchill.

The Blenheim Palace’s beautiful gardens and parks are not only famous in the United Kingdom but also worldwide due to the movie series Harry Potter. Blenheim Palace is home to the “Whomping Willow” which makes it a tourist attraction for those who are more interested in the movie aspect, rather than the historical aspect of the palace.

My favorite part of this once in a lifetime experience was Dr. Brugh’s organ performance in the Palace’s specially made organ. Dr. Brugh played a few musical pieces including my personal favorite, “The Phantom of the Opera”. It was a wonderful experience because not only did Dr. Brugh play for our class, but also to everyone who was going through the tour inside of the palace. The opportunity to play on an organ so valuable is not very common, but Dr. Brugh was granted that very unique and honorable opportunity.

Overall, I enjoyed walking through the very amazing gardens and parks. Not only is this garden very well kept, but they also symbolize a great aspect of English country life. The beautiful trees, rivers, wildlife, flowers, and bridges make this palace unique to all of the other palaces in the United Kingdom. This Palace holds great symbolical value to the English People and It was an amazing experience not only for me but also for the rest of my classmates who are also part of the Cambridge Program. If you are interested in Studying Abroad, I highly encourage the Cambridge program due to the United Kingdom’s rich history and also because of the ability you have as a student to travel to other European Countries.

The British Education System

November 1, 2018 / studyabroad / 0 Comments

Author: Emma Hecht

Location: Cambridge, England

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

The education system here in England is extremely different from what we’re used to in the United States. I attend two different schools: the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin. The University of Cambridge is made up of thirty-one colleges, each with their own dormitories, libraries, and classrooms. Each student accepted to the university is part of one and only one college, such as Kings or Trinity. However, students from each college sit in lectures together, which are not held at any college in particular, but on a different part of campus in buildings of lecture halls. The lectures are typically small, about twenty students, but can be up to around two-hundred. The lecturer basically just walks into class, gives a speech, leaves, and class is over. After the big community lecture, the students go back to their respective colleges and meet with a tutor (a different professor that belongs to their college), which is the person that facilitates a discussion about the class. These meeting might be one on one or in a very small group. Students will turn in all their course work to this tutor, not the lecturer. Speaking of course work, English professors do not assign coursework for a grade during the semester. The only thing that is due for the entire semester is a substantial paper at the end that expresses some sort of knowledge regarding an aspect of the course. There are recommended readings each week, but no quizzes, exams, or in class discussions of what you read. You can choose to read what’s recommended, read something different, or not read at all. Since Valpo students can’t belong to one of the thirty-one colleges, we get access to our Cambridge classes through the Westfield House, the building next door to our house, which is part of the Cambridge University Theological Federation. It’s like a Lutheran seminary that is connected to the lecture halls of Cambridge. So, Valpo students can have lectures in the Cambridge lecture halls, and then we come back to the Westfield House and meet with our tutor (e.g.—I sit in a twenty-five person lecture at the Faculty of Divinity lecture hall for my Sociology of Religion class and then come back to Westfield and meet with Dr. Gunjevic and two other Valpo students to talk over readings and decide on our paper topics). My classes at Anglia Ruskin are similar to Cambridge, but much more relaxed. It’s a small school like Valpo, where my classes (Database Design, Writing Poetry, and Prose Fiction) consist of ten to twenty students. Like Cambridge, there is only one assignment, due at the end of the semester (some of them due after the semester end at the beginning of January). Because they only assign one cumulative assessment, each class typically just once a week for two hours. For these classes, you have to “tap in,” which means you tap your student ID on a little electronic device on the wall inside the door that takes attendance. Even though Anglia uses this system to track exactly how many classes you attend, many students skip classes. But if you study abroad here, you are not allowed to skip more than two, or you get sent back to the States.

Anglia Ruskin University (where I take 3 classes)

Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge University (where I have my lecture once a week)

Study Abroad in Reutlingen Germany (Part 2)

October 31, 2018 / studyabroad / 0 Comments

Author: Shannon Ilg

Location: Milan/Reutlingen/Copenhagen

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

October 5th

This is a chapel in a rather inconspicuous looking church and guess what those interesting decorations on the walls are?
Human bones.
That’s right. Hundreds and thousands of sculls line the walls of this chapel, very different from anything I had ever thought to use as decoration. Our tour guide said that it was actually fairly common in the Middle Ages to use this type of decoration as death was not seen in the same light as it is today. Rather than being repulsed or disgusted by the thought of death, it was a daily occurrence that no one thought twice about when presented with it, so there was no problem with it at all.

October 6th

Okay, so… you can’t go to Italy and not eat some pasta. I mean, would it really even make any sense at all? It was really tasty and the fresh basil made a great difference.

October 7th

Here is an example of the beautiful flowers decorating the city. This large pink flower was growing on a median in the middle of a street.

October 8th

Back in Reutlingen! This is a picture of the very small elevator in the dorms. The stairs just go around it in a square. I don’t usually use it because I live on the fourth floor and I can usually make it up faster than it would take to go all the way down and then back up to my floor.
Ooh, but here is a good time to mention the floors in Europe, or at least Germany… come to think of it I really don’t know if it is like this everywhere or just Germany… Anyways, it is like Wehrenberg as the ground floor is called the ground floor and after going up a flight of stairs you are on the first floor, etc. It takes a little getting used to but honestly it makes more sense to me now to number the floors in this way: when you walk up one flight of stairs you are on floor one… two flights of stairs and you’re on floor two…

October 9th

I want to mention the uniqueness of doors here in Europe. This is just someone’s front door in Reutlingen that I thought was geometrically interesting. But usually, every door is unique. Perhaps not so much in our dorms or office buildings, but in older houses and castles, there are rounded doors, triangular doors, doors with square cutouts, etc. In Copenhagen, I saw a lot of small rounded doors with circular windows. Oftentimes, in an older building there won’t even be two of the same door in the same building. I love how even just looking at doors throughout Europe there is something different and unexpected at every corner.

October 10th

This is right outside the door of the apartment building I live in. It’s interesting to see hot air balloons flying overhead every once in a while. In fact, since taking this picture I have seen the same hot air balloon several times. I have no idea where they come from or where they are going, but it’s always a nice surprise to look up and see one floating by.

October 11th

Okay. Above you see the beginnings of the best trip ever. No exaggeration at all. The magic 8 ball even said so. I’ll begin several days earlier: I asked my friend Andrea if she would want to join me for an adventure where we make no plans at all. We both were very excited and invited another student, Mark, to join us because we thought he would be very interested. We met and agreed to leave Thursday and get back sometime Saturday. That was the extent of our plans. See, the three of us have this rail pass (Eurail if you’re interested) that allows you to travel almost anywhere in Europe for two months. So we didn’t really need a plan anyways.
Thursday, Mark asked if he should bring the magic 8 ball from his floor. Obviously, this was a genius idea and it became our mode of all decision making on the trip.

October 12th

Our first stop was Zurich, Switzerland. You know, where they make all the watches. We got there around midnight and just explored the dark, quiet city at night. It was quite beautiful; all of the tall important buildings were lit so you could see them from very far away and nighttime gave it a very interesting appeal. Above you see the storefront of a lamp store. It was super cool and, though I wouldn’t want a single one of those lamps actually in my house, it was really cool to look at.

October 13th

I would love to talk about all of the things we did on this trip, but it would take far too long as we ended up spending time in 13 different cities over 41.25 hours, so I will stick to just this last bit. We ended up in a small town called Meiringen near Interlocken (Switzerland still), because we saw a cool waterfall from the train and the Magic 8 ball agreed that we needed to see it up close. On the way to the waterfall, we explored the countryside a bit with beautiful mountain views, a stunning river, and purchased fresh milk out of an atm at a farm (like… you give it some change and fill your water bottle with milk… it was great!). When we finally got to the waterfall, we decided to climb up to the top, and it was a treacherous journey ending in a beautiful view.

October 14th

Coming back from our wild amazing adventures, I had a lot of homework to work on. Here, we see my attempt to capture the most boring picture in the history of the world. Have I succeeded? Perhaps not, at least it says hello!

October 15th

In the midst of so much excitement, October 15th I was doing homework and did not get around to taking a picture of anything new, interesting, or even boring. Instead, above I have provided a picture of a previous day, when I took a walk in Reutlingen. Beyond the university, there are miles of walkable paths through fields, hills, and small mountains. It’s always really pretty just to go for a walk or a run around here.

October 16th

Once again, I failed to actually photograph anything this day. Instead, I give you a piece of grass from my floor at the beginning of the semester. I thought it looked like a dinosaur.

October 17th

Another student and I went with my German teacher to go bouldering for the third time. Afterwards, she made us a wonderful dinner of pasta with pumpkin sauce. Afterwards we tried Quark, which is kind of like yogurt but closer to cheese. I absolutely loved it. Here, you see some Russian nesting dolls that nested to an impressively tiny size. The little pink dot was the final doll. Overall, it was a very lovely experience in a very genuine German home.

October 18th

Above, you see the deck of the ferry to Copenhagen on my second journey there. This time, the ultimate stop is Stockholm, Sweden, with a day in Copenhagen. It was a really cool city so I was thrilled to explore it again.

October 19th

This is one of the many interesting finds in Copenhagen. It is a sun-heated sauna you can enjoy on like Wednesdays or Thursdays. We didn’t go in, but it pretty much shouted at us to look so we gladly did.

Traveling…a lot!

October 29, 2018 / studyabroad / 0 Comments

Author: Mark Young

Location: Reutlingen, Germany

Pronouns: He/Him/His

To start out my month, I traveled to Ulm and Blauburen. Ulm is known for its eponymous Muenster. It is the tallest church cathedral in the world. Blauburen is known for its 21 meter deep karst spring. I went alone and while hiking through the mountains, got a bit lost but still found some amazing views (and my way back).

While in Munich for Oktoberfest, we went on a walking tour and enjoyed lively scenes such as this. It was a very fun place to be.

The next day we went to Heidelberg and climbed a mountain to a ruined castle. The view from the castle was amazing. This was the view from another castle looking west down the Neckar River and through Heidelberg.

A few days of rest in between travels…but still some late nights shooting astrophotos. There is much less light pollution in Germany than in America.

After a week of classes, two other students and I went to the train station, got on the first train we saw and ended up in Switzerland! With no plan, over the course of two days we saw Zurich(by night), Luzern(also mostly by night), Interlaken, Meiringen, St. Gallen, Kreuzlingen, and Konstanz. It was quite a wild and extremely fun trip.

This is a typical view in the Jungfrau Region, where Interlaken is. You can see the silhouttes of paragliders in the sky.

A quick stop in Meiringen…an absolutely beautiful town.

A late night view from a beach in Luzern.

Weekends in England

October 26, 2018 / studyabroad / 0 Comments

Author: Emma Hecht

Location: England, United Kingdom

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

Three weekends ago, six other Valpo students and I loaded ourselves into a van with our director, Dr. Brugh, and her husband, and took a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon and Bath. When we arrived in Stratford, we ate dinner at the Dirty Duck and afterwards, as Stratford is Shakespeare’s hometown, went to a play. Our group split up, half of us going to Tamburlaine and the other half to Maydays, a choice we had made a few days previous after reading a synopsis of each half. I was in the Maydays half because I knew it was contemporary (I did not want to sit through two hours of Shakespearian speech) and for some reason (a delusion) I thought it was going to be funny. It wasn’t funny. It was extremely political, there was a ton of yelling, and through that ton of yelling, a ton of spit spray. Thankfully, we were not in the front row.

The next day we walked around Stratford, touring Shakespeare’s childhood home and walking through an outdoor market. Mid-afternoon we all piled back into the van and headed for Bath, the home of the Roman baths. As I understand it, the baths were where old rich men could come and bathe together… The baths are still filled with water; however, no one is bathing there now, unless they want to be submerged in a sticky brown and green pool.

A Roman Bath

Two weekends ago, on a beautiful fall day, all of us gathered up again and made a trip to Blenheim Palace and Coventry Cathedral. Blenheim Palace was the home of Winston Churchill’s grandparents, where he would have lived as a toddler. For proof of this, they’ve mounted locks of his five-year-old hair above a bed in one of the rooms. However, it’s not only Churchill that stems from Blenheim Palace, but also Princess Diana Spencer. While she never lived there, the palace is still in her family.

Blenheim Palace

Blenheim Palace Grounds

Coventry Cathedral was our other stop. In preparation for the trip, we learned about the architecture of the Cathedral. It was bombed, obliterated during World War II. The walls of the original church are still somewhat intact with a little bit of the original stained glass, but there is no roof, so the area has been turned into a courtyard. Mid-twentieth century, the contemporary space was built, connected to the courtyard. The architect who designed and build this church was in close communication with the man who designed the Chapel of the Resurrection at Valpo. Some things are extremely similar, such as the paneled walls leading up to the altar. The chairs are exactly like the ones in the Chapel (although, rumor has it that the seats in the Chapel were widened three inches to accommodate Americans’ “size difference”). But instead of a stained glass window at the front, there is a huge tapestry that covers the entire wall. I still like Valpo’s Chapel better (nothing beats the stained glass window), but it was interesting to see a beautiful contemporary church in England, which seems dominated by Gothic architecture.

Coventry Cathedral Courtyard

Study Abroad in Reutlingen Germany

October 25, 2018 / studyabroad / 0 Comments

Author: Shannon Ilg

Location: Reutlingen Germany

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

This is the second set of pictures from my adventures here in Germany. Since my first set of pictures, I have done a lot of traveling outside of the country. I have been to Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, and I’m on my way to Sweden as I write. It has been so much fun, and I have learned so much. Below is the second collection of pictures I took daily of the beautiful, strange, and mundane for me, your good-ol’ average Valpo student. I hope you can take a moment to see and appreciate the little things I have photographed, feel free to skip around, and maybe even be inspired to take on your own journey!

September 19, 2018

In Germany, we take the trains all the time. This is an underground entrance to one of the train stations that is particularly colorful. For the most part, the graffiti on the walls seems to have been paid installations. They are very interesting and colorful; it always gives you something to think about or appreciate. While traveling around Germany, make sure to keep your eyes open, because sometimes you’ll stumble upon really cool murals on the back of buildings or similar places where you wouldn’t necessarily expect.

September 20th, 2018

Here you see the first (and only, up to this point) attempt to make a pizza from scratch with the limited resources that my friend and I could find here. I purchased a circular metal plate for one euro to use as a pan which has actually been quite a good purchase. Since then it has been a plate, a lid to a pot of carrots and potatoes, and a tray to carry other dishes back and forth to my room.
Anyways, the pizza was actually really good. The only weird thing was that we used pasta sauce instead of pizza sauce or tomato paste, so it had a little bit of a strange flavor.

September 21st, 2018

We made our final full group trip to Liepzig which ended up being kind of a smaller version of Berlin. This building caught me off guard because it was so, you know, chopped in half. It was a really interesting café with statues of elephents in front of it.

September 22nd, 2018

Our second day in Liepzig we went to a Bach Museum. Around the museum, you could listen to the different musical arrangements that Bach had written, and in the room pictured above, you could listen to different pieces and decide which instruments you wanted to hear by pushing buttons on and off for each instrument. It was quite interesting.
Another cool thing about this museum was how evolved it was for the blind. It makes sense that a museum about music would be somewhere a blind person would enjoy, but they really go out of their way to make sure it is welcome and easy to enjoy for those who cannot see. At one point there were organ pipes hung from the ceiling that when you touched them, they played different musical compositions. In the above room, there was a book explaining every instrument in Bach’s time. Each page had a plastic page in front of it with braille, and the pages with pictures had a plastic page in front of it with a three-dimensional model of the instrument. I was very impressed that such accommodations were made so that those who cannot see have a wonderful museum to explore while discovering the beautiful history of music.

September 23rd, 2018

This is Wartburg castle where Martin Luther hid after nailing his theses to his church’s door. We went on a tour throughout the castle and got to explore the halls for several hours. The day we were there it was rather rainy which made the view outside foggy and after leaving, we all got soaked to the bone. In general, it was a good fun trip: standing in the rain when everyone is just as soaked as you never fails to bring a few smiles.

September 24th, 2018

After our final day in Liepzig, we all went off to go on our own smaller excursions. A friend and I decided that Austria would be our next stop. This was a delicious hot chocolate from a small café we ate at while waiting to check into our Airbnb.

September 25th, 2018

We had one full day in Austria, and we decided to climb a mountain. It was a beautiful journey up, every turn different and more amazing than the one before. By the time we reached the top, it was pretty steep, and I tripped and fell, scraping my leg pretty good on a rock. We ate at a quiet restaurant at the top and then headed back down. Let me tell you, I laugh at every time I ever thought as a kid ‘dang it, I really wish I was going downhill’ when I was going uphill. I am not a mountain climber; I was clad in plain tennis shoes with a bit of a cold, along with a high level of clumsiness. I slipped and fell like at least twelve times on the way down. I honestly never felt so incapable of anything in my entire life, where every single step I took was one step closer to complete and utter failure. But even so, it was so much fun, and unbelievably beautiful. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

September 26th, 2018

Just look at this wonderful view we had from our Airbnb. Down the hill on the left is a field full of very large friendly cows. On the right is a beautiful panoramic view of mountains all around. Behind the photo where you cannot see is the mountain that we climbed. Everything was so unbelievably beautiful, and I would recommend the Austrian countryside to anyone looking for a calm and stunning view.

September 27th, 2018

Welcome to the Oktoberfest, in Munich! First things first… Thursday was a great day to go. It was lively, but we could still get a seat to get a drink. It was not impossible to walk. It was a blast!
In case you don’t know exactly what the Oktoberfest is, it is a German festival with wonderful food, music, beer, and carnival rides. I have also heard that the Munich Oktoberfest is actually not quite as genuine as some of the smaller cities’ versions of Oktoberfest because it has been turned into a bit of a tourist attraction. Of course, this makes sense, but it did not make it any less enjoyable for me… because I am a tourist.

September 28th, 2018

This entire semester, they have been tearing down this building. In this picture, I was standing on the seventh floor of one of the apartment buildings that Valpo students are staying in. Behind the large pine tree in the top right you see the other building where we are staying. That’s my building. In between there used to be a third similar building but now all that is left is several piles of rocks. Oftentimes, I wake up in the wee early morning to the sounds of construction, or rather destruction vehicles. It has been quite interesting to see the complete process of the tearing down of the building.

September 29th, 2018

This is a little potted plant in the communal kitchen/lounge on my floor. It was just sprouting a flower in this picture. At the beginning of the semester there was a cute note next to it asking people to make sure it was watered while the owner was gone. Thankfully it survived and is here to show us cute little red flowers.

September 30th, 2018

This is the top of Georgenberg, a mountain on the outskirts of town where you can see the entirety of Reutlingen. It makes for a decent hike and a beautiful view. My favorite thing about it is that from the top you can see and point out pretty much every major place we had been to in Reutlingen. You can see our dorm buildings and the University, you can see the Church downtown and between the two you can see everywhere else that we had been in town.

October 1st, 2018

This was an issue that I have had a couple times eating Pringles. When I went to open the can, the inside foil covering peeled away from the cardboard. It’s not particularly strange or anything, it just hadn’t ever happened to me before. But it of course does not affect the quality of the beloved Pringles so I still enjoyed them.

October 2nd, 2018

Above you see Johannesbeeren. It is a delicious fruit that I discovered at a local farmer’s market. I had never eaten or even seen them before but guess what? They are around in the US, too! It’s a currant! I mean, I just never thought that you can eat them plain and not cooked in anything. They are wonderfully sweet and sour, and you can literally put the whole stalk of them in your mouth and pull out the stalk and eat all of them at the same time. They are so fun to eat, and I am definitely going to see if I can find them as well in the US when I return.

October 3rd, 2018

Above is our perfect, uncooked pie. It is made with apples directly off of a tree, and a wonderful blend of sugar and cinnamon (I haven’t been able to find brown sugar though, which is okay, just a little weird for pie). It turned out a little bit overcooked on the top and a little bit undercooked on the bottom, full of an inch of liquid from the apples… It tasted delicious, but this picture is definitely more fun to look at than the one of the cooked pie. Hey, but pie is pie, and it was a blast making-and eating-it.

October 4th, 2018

Here you see the first super interesting thing about Milan, Italy. I took a weekend trip there with a couple others and we ended up having a really fun time. In this picture you can see the track for the streetcars going right through the grass. There were other places where the grass was even growing in between the tracks. As for the rest of Milan, there were beautiful plants and flowers growing everywhere. And I mean everywhere. They were even abundant on the sides and rooves of buildings. I really enjoyed the feeling from this, as it gave the city a very green appearance and feeling.

Weekend Adventures in Germany

October 15, 2018 / studyabroad / 0 Comments

Author: Ulises Hernandez

Location: Germany

On September 20th, I had the chance to travel to Germany along with some of the other students that are also part of the Cambridge study abroad program. From London, we took a plane to a small town called Memmingen, which is about two hours from Munich. From the airport, we took a bus to Munich and we walked around the city before checking in into our hostel. The whole city was preparing for a major annual celebration known as Oktoberfest. Everywhere you turned you would see vendors selling the very famous Lederhosen outfits which are a very important component of the celebrations. After walking around for a few hours, we decided to check into our hostel to leave our backpacks in order to see what Germany had to offer after sunset. For dinner, we stopped at a local market where hundreds of people enjoyed eating smoked meats, bread, sausages, dips, and soft pretzels. After spending some time in the market, we walked to the very famous Hofbräuhaus where we were very lucky to find a table, especially with all of the tourist that were already in the city of Munich for the Oktoberfest celebration. While we were there, we enjoyed eating soft pretzels with our drinks while live authentic German music was being played a few tables away from where we were sitting. After having enjoyed the music, we went back to our AirBnB to make plans for the following day.

On our third day in Germany, we as a group decided to visit the very famous Neuschwanstein Castle located in Schwangau, Germany. It was a three-hour train ride from the Munich train station to Schwangau, but on the way there, we were able to see the very beautiful German countryside. Once we got Schwangau, we took a bus to the castle since the castle is located on top of the mountain. Once we got to the castle, we were able to do a tour through a small section of the castle and hike parts of the beautiful mountain. After spending many hours at the castle, we took the train back to Munich in order to spend some time at Oktoberfest. The next morning we got up very early and took the train back to Memmingen in order to make it back to Cambridge on time for our Monday classes.