Valpo Voyager

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Semana Santa en Europa

April 21, 2016 / econtreras / 0 Comments

Well you’re probably wondering “what in the world does that title mean?” I’m glad you asked. Semana Santa literally translates to Holy Week, otherwise known as my spring break, but no seriously, it is a thing here in Spain. Whether you’re Catholic, Christian, Muslim, etc. you may or may not know its significance. In the Catholic religion Semana Santa starts the Saturday before Palm Sunday and ends on Resurrection Sunday otherwise known as Easter. In Granada, where I am currently studying, there are least two or three parades or marches, if you will, that happen everyday during this week. They all consist of a float, a band, and others carrying crosses and/or reciting prayers. Whether you’re Catholic or not, you will certainly appreciate its beauty. Each float has a meaning behind it that also connects to the day it’s on. In Granada the most important days of Semana Santa are Jueves y Viernes Santo (Thursday and Friday). Now unfortunately, or not, I spent most of my semana santa elsewhere.

I spent the first half in Barcelona. (If you don’t know I had already visited Barcelona once before and I loved it. Of course I had to visit again.) My time in Barcelona was very “chill”. We weren’t rushing around trying to see everything. While I was there I finally got to see and tour Camp Nou (the official and home stadium of FC Barcelona). Now while in Barcelona we usually take the metro to get to places faster. If you know me at all, you know that I can’t find my way around the city. I am so afraid of getting lost that I won’t even go out. So, instead of taking the metro I chose to walk there instead. Trying to understand the directions and the map my friends showed me I was like ….hmmm okay…I’m gonna walk there. In the end I’m glad I walked because I got to see a part of Barcelona I hadn’t seen before, due to the fact that we took the metro everywhere. Camp Nou was absolutely fantastic.

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Can you guess who my favorite player is?

We went to the zoo and found Kevin! and a variety of other strange birds. We also went to Parc Guell which was designed by Antoni Gaudi (famous Catalan architect). It was a rainy/cloudy day so we didn’t get to enjoy it as much.

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Kevin.

Now onto the part you’ve all been waiting for!! ROME!

#NoMakeup #NoFilter #NoMoney

Now Rome is beautiful don’t get me wrong, but I feel like after being there for five days, I’ve had enough of the Holy City. My only purpose for going to Rome was to see the Colosseum, which I did! ON THE FIRST DAY! I have a fetish for Greek and Roman history so the fact that I got to stand on ground where so much history happened was…simply breathtaking. It was hard to wrap my mind around it. There are so many facts that I want to tell you, but this isn’t a history lesson jaja, so I’ll try and stick to the bare basics.

The Colosseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheater was named the Colosseum after a huge statue next to it called the Colosseo, was built in 72 A.D. by Emperor Vespasian of the Flavian dynasty and it took 8 years to build. In 80 A.D. Vespasian’s son, Titus, opened the Colosseum with 100 days of games (gladiator fights, wild animals hunts, etc.) After four centuries of active use, the arena fell into neglect and parts of it were torn down and used for building material. It’s crazy to think that this arena could seat 70.000 people in an orderly fashion in under 30 minutes! It’s true, the tour guide said so.

After the Colosseum we saw the Roman Forum and some of the gardens AND THE TREVI FOUNTAIN. https://www.instagram.com/p/BDRWWWwBW4C/?taken-by=estyluvscookies
(For your viewing pleasure =) my friends and I as we make our wishes at the Trevi Fountain.) Most of it is in ruins, of course, these buildings are ancient. It was still beautiful. Most of what Rome is today is built over the old city. The temple of Julius Cesar where he was supposedly stabbed and died is an excellent example of how you can see that modern-day Rome is built on top of ancient Rome. I am sorry my pictures are low quality for this here. It was nighttime when we saw this. Also fun fact: it is today a cat sanctuary! Strangely exciting.

At the Roman Forum.

The Cat Sanctuary

The Pantheon

Steps where Julius Cesar was supposedly stabbed and died.

Roman Ruins.

Speaking of cats, my friends and I went to a cat café! We did a lot of walking that day. First we went to see the catacombs (rather unfortunately there were no bones or skulls adorning the walls, however, there were magnificent frescoes and whatnot). Catacombs, whether or not it is full of skeletons, are creepy and cold. Freezing cold.

Oh! I must not forget one of the more beautiful parts of my visit to Italy. The Vatican. It is a plethora of riches let me tell you. The marble that was used to adorn the walls of the Colosseum?.. It’s in the Vatican. The Egyptian granite that was quarried and placed in the Roman Forum?.. The Vatican. Basically anything worth anything is in the Vatican.. However, it is beautiful. I’m not much of art person so I won’t say much about it except say that there are some serious magnificent pieces of artwork displayed there. Frescoes, paintings, sculptures, tapestries, statues, the works not to mention the Sistine Chapel. It is said that it is the second largest church/chapel in the world! The thing is HUGE. Can’t believe what the largest looks like.

And to end this post on a good note…the food. O. M. G. Like, I cant even imagine ever eating pizza, pasta, and gelato ever again. Italy has ruined me. Yes, I totally just went all white-girl right there. #NoShame. But no for real…the food was literally like my favorite part of being in Rome.

Gelato a day keeps the doctor away.

Fettucine Alfredo. YUM!

And for the record, no I did not see the Pope so don’t ask.

One Week in Namibia

By Nathanael Juliot, Olivia Cook, Lia Wellen, Richie Wehman III
This blog post was written as a group of students studying in Namibia discussing the week of March 16th.

Up close and personal with some cheetahs

We are settling into our routine at the Center for Global Education and Experience here in Windhoek, Namibia. Most of our classes involve either speakers or field trips which enhances our learning and understanding of Southern Africa and most specifically Namibia in terms of history, politics, development, religion, and environment. In this post we will tell you about some of these engaging class experiences! We felt weird taking pictures of the speakers, but we have some pictures of the Environment & Sustainability class field trip, which is more exciting anyways!

San people describing their technique for producing fire

Following an incredibly rewarding week-long urban homestay, the CGEE students were ready to attack the new week. On Monday the Environmental and Sustainability class had the great pleasure of visiting the N/a’an ku se Lodge and Wildlife Sanctuary, located just 42 km east of Windhoek. Upon our arrival the tour guides drove our group out to visit a San Bushmen family that periodically stays at the sanctuary to educate tourists about their traditional lifestyle. The San people took us around the land to showcase their traditional hunter-gatherer techniques, as well as the way they utilize plants for holistic healing purposes. It was a tremendous learning opportunity, but many members of our group felt conflicted about the implications of our experience as the San people were removed from their lands and are now considered the most marginalized community in Namibia, forcing them to commodify their culture to tourists. Shortly following the tour, our group was off to visit and learn about the Wildlife Sanctuary.

Wild dogs are skilled hunters who have many parallels to hyenas. They are also very loud and obnoxious.

Through the visitation of different animals such as lions, wild dogs, baboons, cheetahs and leopards, our class was able to get a much better idea as to how N/a’an ku sê has successfully been able to protect wildlife and their habitats. The sanctuary provides a haven and second chance for countless injured, orphaned, and abused animals. It’s the organization’s goal to release every animal free so they can live a natural life in the wild, but that sadly isn’t always the case. We learned that the release or rehabilitation is not always possible due to the severity of an animal’s injury or habituation to humans, all serving as a threat to their safety if they were to be released. One highlight of the trip was being able to witness Clarence, the male lion, soar into the air to snatch his dinner. It was extraordinary seeing him viciously mark his territory and establish his dominance.

Feeding C’earance the lion at N/a’an ku se game reserve

On Tuesday March 1st Mr. Phil Ya Nangoloh spoke in our History class, entitled “Race & Racism in Southern Africa and the U.S.”. Mr. Ya Nangoloh is a human rights activist and director and co-founder of NamRights. He described NamRights as a monitoring and advocacy human rights organization that can be compared to Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International, except that NamRights operates on a national, rather than international, scale. NamRights also gives paralegal services of which most cases are either people dismissed in the private sector or women seeking complaints against their male counterpart.

His task was to explain his understanding of discrimination and racism in Namibia and Southern Africa currently and historically. Mr. Ya Nangoloh claims that Namibia has historically been a victim of state racism, having undergone both German and South Africa occupation, the latter of which engulfed Namibia into apartheid. He spoke of how the Namibian constitution is extremely liberal and has very good human rights components, but that these laws are not effectively implemented in Namibia, if at all. The main point Mr. Ya Nangoloh made was that since the end of apartheid, and the liberation struggle, the way in which discrimination plays out has changed. During the liberation movement there was one common enemy to fight against, which was South Africa and the apartheid regime. Now, as this one enemy has technically been conquered, discrimination stems from wealth inequality, racism, and the scramble for scarce resources. Discrimination, now, he explained, comes from within societies or communities rather than from outside. He concluded on what I thought was a grounding note. He said that “racism is an innate and human nature, but there are good people doing things about it, like you and me”. We have been struggling with learning about all the awful disgraces of both the United States and Southern Africa, and it was nice to hear a “realistic” view on things, that there is discrimination but that there are people working to combat it.

On Wednesday March 2, we had a very interesting speaker visit our Development class. Herbert Jauch, a German expat and political activist in Windhoek, has spent the last couple years studying income inequality in Namibia. The beginning of his presentation explained key points of Namibian history and eventually evolved to explain how income inequality is a product of old historical systems still prevalent today. After setting the foundation for today’s inequalities, Jauch continued to explain a study that was conducted in hopes of alleviating poverty in Namibia. This social experiment, set in a small village south of Windhoek, focused on people who earn so little that basic necessities, such as education and health care, are inaccessible. A solution to these problems was an idea called a Basic Income Grant. This monthly grant of N$100 (US$ 6.25) was given out to every person in the area regardless of income or age in order to help cover basic costs of school books, registration fees, small health needs, or other costs that would help families access services and improve their quality of life. One staggering statistic Jauch shared with us was that in this community 60% of kids dropped out of school because they were hungry, but after the BIG was implemented, 95% of kids completed school. He also shared various benefits such as increased visits to clinics, and malnutrition dropping by half within a year of this grant. Unfortunately leaders at the time did not appreciate the success rates as much as Jauch and his organization did, and plans to continue this idea nationwide are at a standstill.

The idea of a monthly income grant fit well with what we have been covering in our Development class, specifically ideas of poverty alleviation and cases of well-intentioned development projects that do more hurt than harm. Jauch’s presentation was an interesting example of a poverty alleviation strategy and I was intrigued by the both the positive outcome and some ramifications such as the conclusion that programs like this are hard to implement regionally because of family members who migrated to the area to benefit as well. Another point Jauch made was that social welfare programs are generally stigmatized and by providing every individual with an equal grant stigmas are avoided and people are empowered to live healthier lives. Many people in the United States dislike the terms socialism and social welfare, but this speaker highlighted how these ideas can be helpful to society and gave me a case study I can use to support new ideas of aid implementation that I can share with others. Overall, I was very impressed by our speaker; his comments added insight into what we have been studying and local poverty alleviation efforts to combat a nationwide problem.

On Friday March 4th, the Religion and Social Change class had a guest speaker visit named Reverend Gotthard Gurirab. Reverend Gurirab is a faculty member at the University of Namibia working with a focus in critical issues facing the church. His talk focused on African Traditional Religion and how it has been affected by colonialism. Specifically, he discussed the diminishing role of Ubuntuism in African culture. Ubuntu is an African word which refers to a universal concept where people value the good of the community above self-interest. Reverend Gurirab has seen that Ubuntuism is almost dead in cities and those people who live on the same street live as if they are in foreign countries. He went on to describe the relationships between people in the cities and it paralleled greatly with relationships between people in the United States. I found it extremely interesting to hear him describe in detail, American society and condemn it as ruining the Namibian people. Africa is constantly subjected to the effects of colonialism even to this day and it can be seen that western society has overwhelmed the traditional values of the Namibian people. Ubuntu has ideologies of sharing, compassion, peace, reconciliation, combating crime and violence, and poverty eradication. These ideologies have been cast away by the younger population for western ideologies of focusing on the individual. Reverend Gurirab called for a massive revitalization of African Traditional Religion in Namibia and throughout Africa. This will be an uphill battle, however, to remove the stains of imperialism that still exist within Africa and many Namibians do not have any desire to move away from the western ideologies that promise a path to prosperity.

Overall, we had a great week of learning through speakers and field trips. We hope you enjoyed following us along our journey!

Vamos a Nicaragua!

April 5, 2016 / Lindsey Van Der Aa / 0 Comments

All too often, United States citizens think that all of Latin America is the same. Last week, I had the opportunity to go to Nicaragua, where I saw first hand that is not the case. Nicaragua is right next door to Costa Rica, but the differences were obvious as soon as we crossed the border. Nicaragua is much poorer than Costa Rica, and even the way streets and houses look is just different. We were only there for ten days, but our schedule was very full and we learned a lot!

One of the first differences I noticed about Nicaragua was the poverty. Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. For four out of the ten days of our trip, we stayed with host families in Ciudad Sandino, a small city just outside of the capital city, Managua. As soon as we got to our host families, we noticed that their living conditions were definitely less than we were used to. However, we also quickly noticed their warmth and kindness to us. On the first night, we were invited to play kickball with some kids in the street! It also amazed me to see the sense of community this little town had. Everyone seemed to know each other and wanted to spend time together. Definitely a contrast to the fast-paced city life that is so often valued in the United States.

This is from our tour of Managua, the capital city. It is quite beautiful!

This is a miniature model of Managua before nearly the entire city was destroyed in an earthquake in 1972. One of my favorite parts of our tour!

One of the most powerful experiences on the trip happened a few nights in. After two days in Ciudad Sandino, we left for a rural community that was very poor, El Bonete. It felt like we were driving in the middle of nowhere for a very long time before coming upon a little village. Most families there did not even have indoor plumbing. However, once again we were immediately overwhelmed with their hospitality. They put together a community dinner/gathering for all of us at night, and we got to dance and play games with all of the kids! Later on, we got to hear testimonies from people in the community who were affected by the civil war in the 1980s. We had learned about this in class, but hearing testimonies of people who actually got displaced from their families during that time was very powerful.

One of the most powerful experiences for me in the community was hearing one of the community leaders talk about his impressions of the United States. He had been there a few times and he said he could not believe how much stuff there was and how much waste he noticed. His impression was that people are not very resourceful and throw away lots of things they could use. He also noticed that most people don’t think twice about saving energy or taking care of the environment. Again, this is something I had known in my head but it never really hit home until I heard it from someone from the outside. What struck me the most, though, is how kind everyone was to us even if they resented some things about our country. Rather than telling us how horrible we are, they just wanted us to hear their story and then go back home and think about how we can change.

The final place we visited in Nicaragua was the beautiful city of Granada. It is modeled after Granada, Spain, so the architecture is absolutely beautiful. It was a fun way to end our trip after some heavy, heart-wrenching experiences. We got to tour the city, eat gelato, and enjoy each other’s company. The Nicaragua trip was not only full of learning but full of fun!

View of Granada

One fun thing we got to do was make piñatas at an organization which helps adults with developmental disabilities. It was really fun to get to know them and help them with their work!

Namib Desert

Environmental Sustainability in the Namib Desert

March 22, 2016 / njuliot / 0 Comments

Over the weekend, our entire group traveled to the Namib Desert and stayed at a camp called NADEET. NADEET is an incredible place that hopes to promote sustainable living and environmental consciousness. To do this, their camp is almost entirely sustainable and they bring students, parents, educators, and community members there to teach them sustainable practices.

Having a “sun-downer” on the dunes

Three of their main focuses are on water conservation, conserving electricity through using renewable energy, and recycling. To conserve water, they built the bathrooms with no running water. Instead, campers use bucket showers and use cups of water when brushing their teeth. They also utilize a toilet with no flushing capability because flushing a toilet can use almost 10 liters of water.

The sustainable cabins we lived in at NADEET

The electricity of the camp is powered by solar panels that take advantage of the hot, desert sun. To cook, they use solar cookers, solar ovens, and sustainable fire cookers. These options are far more sustainable than conventional ovens as they use less to no electricity or resources and are able to cook the food just as well.

Our group dune-boarding at NADEET

NADEET also emphasizes recycling and they do so by separating trash into compost, paper, glass and tin, and trash. By doing so, the amount of actual trash that goes to a landfill is dramatically reduced. A vast majority of the trash ends up as food compost and goes back into the soil and the garden while another portion is recycled in town and the paper is used to make fire bricks for he sustainable cooker as an alternative to firewood. This leaves only a small percentage of trash that is actually left as rubbish that needs to be thrown in a landfill or incinerated. In order to maintain this sustainability and to hold them and their campers accountable they will do an environmental audit in order to determine the amount of each resource they have used and how much waste they produce.

Namib Desert ft. an Oryx

One aspect of NADEET that I found extremely important was their emphasis on the fact that environmental education is important to everyone and has an impact on social and economic issues. Many times, it can be seen that the environment is thrown aside when a “bigger” problem arises within a community. This thought process is what has thrown the world into a chaotic spiral of destruction. What NADEET did an excellent job of describing is that many other issues can be resolved through environmental consciousness. NADEET also emphasizes the fact that environmental education does not need to exist solely in a science classroom but is something that can be taught in any subject. Specifically, in our environmental audit, we were shown how math can be taught through environmental education by having the students calculate their personal water usage or waste.

Me staring off at the desert and mountains

Overall, my experience at NADEET was incredible, I was able to experience so many new things and learn a ton about environmental sustainability. The Namib Desert is extremely beautiful and I was made truly breathless by the vast mountains and open desert as well as the stunningly expansive nighttime sky.

From hiking through the dunes looking at plants and animals, to making solar oven pizzas, I learned so many differently things about Namibia and sustainable living in general. I feel that many of the things I learned will help me to be more aware of the environmental impact of my everyday life. I also can bring back many of the practical ideas from NADEET and share them with my friends and family. Even though I might not use a solar cooker or buy solar panels, I can still find many practical ways to decrease my environmental impact. I also know that I will take what Viktoria said to heart about teaching environmental sustainability in any classroom, even my future math or physics classroom.

Sunset over the Namib Desert

*Many of these photos were taken by a member of my group Kayla Koterwski. Visit www.lenstotheliving.wordpress.com to see more of her work!

Talk about crazy weather!

March 20, 2016 / econtreras / 0 Comments

Well to make things a bit easier (both for me to write and remember and you to follow along) I’ll simply write out our schedule and add in little comments and pictures here and there. Here we go!!

Friday, Feb 26, 2016

00:00h- Leave Granada (For the record, everything in Europe is in military time — good thing I’m already used to it!)
Sarah* and I had a bit of trouble trying to find the bus! We walked around the mall a couple of times until we finally saw it.
- *Sarah was My traveling buddy and she’s the one with the short curly blonde hair un all My pictures. Just FYI.
- This was around a 10 hour bus ride….O.M.G.
09:30h- Arrival in Lisboa (Lisbon)
- First impression: Lisboa is one of the most colorful cities I have ever seen! Every building is a different color so it’s very bright.
12:00h- Tour through the city (Center of Lisboa and Castillo de San Jorge) and free time
It was raining like crazy! On top of that it was also very windy so….goodbye umbrella!
21:30h- Dinner and FIESTA
- My dinner was a prosutto piza (smoked ham pizza). I was a little cautious about trying new food since my trip to Morocco *ahem, food poisoning — not good*.

Saturday, Feb. 27, 2016

07:30h- Breakfast
08:30h- Leave for Sintra and Palacio da Pena
- Sintra has a macroclimate which means they can experience 5 different kinds of weather in one day! It’s unique characteristics has had UNESCO name it as a world heritage for it’s “cultural landscape”.
- The Palacio da Pena (the really colorful castle in my pictures, IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL) is the characteristic monument of Sintra. It’s on the Sierra of Sintra and it is surrounded by a garden in which thousands of botanical species live.
14:00h– Quinta da Regaleira is another site that we visited on this day. It´s enigmatic and very mysterious. There were underground tunnels and beautiful views.
16:30h- Cabo da Roca
- Welcome to the westernmost part of the known world!! ….At least until 1492 when Christopher Columbus “discovered” the Americas.
18:00h- Return to Lisboa
19:00h- Free time in Lisboa
- Here Sarah and I made our dinner (pasta al dente….jk we’re not Italian, we can’t make pasta al dente =( but it was still good!)

Sunday Feb. 28, 2016 (Día de Andalucía)

09:00h- Breakfast
10:00h- Belem- Free time in Lisboa

Belem is where during the Golden Age the Portuguese ships would set sail towards new discoveries.
Here we also saw the Torre de Belem.
- In Belem there is also the famous pastel de nata which is a pastry filled with custard and OMG it is DELICIOUS!!
17:00h- Return to Granada
- We didn’t get back into Granada until around 5 am! The bus driver got lost and so that added a bit of travel time.

Well there ya go! My crazy trip to Portugal was something I’ll never forget. I’m glad I decided to venture out of my comfort zone and go on this trip. I was afraid that I would be one of those that are too shy and would be isolated from the rest of the group, but that wasn’t so. The group leaders made it so that everyone was involved and overall had a great time.

I’d like to say that at the end of this trip I had a great revelation about myself and what it’s like to be abroad blah blah blah, but I can’t. This trip literally just was me enjoying my time here and experiencing a different culture. It’s good to once in a while just do something for yourself, even if it’s just drinking a cup of tea in the morning and reading a book or taking a spontaneous trip to Portugal where the weather is unpredictable and you’re freezing your butt off! So this is me telling you to get off that couch, put your coat on (cause I know yall are in the middle of a blizzard over there ;D), grab a couple bucks and go on a mini road trip with your family and enjoy your time together. Life is short so enjoy it while you can! In the end, it’s the little moments that matter the most. =)

Exploring Cape Town

March 18, 2016 / njuliot / 0 Comments

Part 1: Finding the Beach
On our first full day in Cape Town, Amanda, Kayla, Olivia and I decided we would walk to the Camps beach from our guesthouse. The problem was that it was a few miles away across the entire city, but we figured it would be a great way to explore the city. We began our journey at a hidden café that was far too fancy for our group but we went there anyway. We then kept walking towards the beach using the occasional sign as a guide. As we walked, we could see an amazing view of the city. The city is extremely beautiful on its own, but the backdrop of Table Mountain brings it to a whole new level.

View of Cape Town from walk

The first 2/3rds of our walk were spent traveling uphill, but the beauty of the city distracted us enough not to care. At one point I ran off to go explore the trees nearby because they were so cool that I couldn’t help myself. We then walked down the winding streets that work their way down to the beach and met up with the rest of our group.

Winding roads to Camps Beach

View of Camps Beach

At the beach, the water was a bit too cold for swimming and there was an intense wind that sent sand spiraling in all directions. I escaped to an outcropping of rocks and climbed up. I spent nearly an hour just staring out at the ocean and at the mountains that surrounded me.

The clouds roll in over Table Mountain

Part 2: Bishop Desmond Tutu
On Friday morning, I woke up early and went to a Eucharist at St. Georges Cathedral where I got to take part in a service led by Bishop Desmond Tutu. He was an extremely kind and loving person. Bishop Tutu went around and tried to learn the name of every visitor and made sure to inquire about the status of each of his regular members. It was truly a blessing to be in his presence.

Some members of our group with Bishop Desmond Tutu

Part 3: Climbing Table Mountain
It’s a long story. But basically we did not plan well. But we still didn’t die.

View from Table Mountain

Part 4: On My Own
On one of our free days, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I ended up just walking out the door and picking a direction. I ended up walking through the park and around downtown until I ended up at the train station. I walked up to the guy at the main desk and asked him where I should go for the day. He asked me if I wanted to go to a beach and I said “sure!” So he said, “alright! There’s a train leaving in 5 minutes at gate 6”. So I left, not really knowing where I was off to. I watched as Cape Town flew by my window and the countryside appeared. I ended up at Muizenberg beach which is about an hour away from Cape Town. My experiences were very unique but it was well worth it. I met interesting people and got to have a day for one for the first time in a long time.

Muizenberg Beach

Part 5: Adventure Day
On our last day in Cape Town, Olivia, Luke, Taylor, Dashawn and I went out on a day full of adventures. We started out by going to Signal hill and went paragliding. I hooked up to the parachute with my guide and he told me to run. We ran forward together as he got a gust of wind and ran right off the cliff. We flew around for about 10 minutes and got a fantastic view of the city and Table Mountain. I even saw a whale!

Paragliding!

After paragliding, I went surfing for the first time! I was able to stand up a few times but I definitely am not good at all. It was still a fantastic time and our instructor was extremely helpful and entertaining to say the least.

Surfing!

All in all, Cape Town was an amazing experience full of adventures and learning. I was able to push myself to try new things and explore my own thoughts and beliefs about the world.

Table Mountain from the park

Mountains and Valleys

March 17, 2016 / Lindsey Van Der Aa / 0 Comments

After a long and full two months, I suddenly realized that the semester was halfway done. What a crazy two moths it has been. If you ask me what I’ve done in Costa Rica, I’ll tell you about the weekend trips and funny stories about my host mom and how much Spanish I’ve picked up, and you might think I’ve been having a blast every second of every day. But in reality, my day to day life feels pretty ordinary. As much fun as I’ve had studying abroad, I have learned the most not from the amazing weekends on the beach or in the mountains, but from the day to day challenges of adjusting to life in a different country.

The place where we live is called the Central Valley. Costa Rica is generally mountainous, but the area surrounding San Jose (the capital city) is a large valley, where the majority of the population lives. The geography of Costa Rica is a pretty accurate metaphor for my time here. We’ve gone out of the Central Valley for some amazing trips and breathtaking views, but the majority of my time is spent in the city, where I go to class and mind my own business. Some of those days are really hard. But just because I have had some hard times doesn’t mean I wouldn’t recommend studying abroad. In fact, it’s because of the hard days when I just wanted to go home and hang out with my friends and speak English that I’m glad I decided to spend four months here. The most learning happens not in the mountains but in the Valley.

For spring break last week, our group took a trip to Arenal Volcano (Volcán Arenal). It is a pretty famous tourist location, and the volcano is still active. It was a ton of fun, and we took a tour where we got to swim in a waterfall and a hot spring! When I was in the waterfall, it was one of those moments that I pictured my study abroad experience to be like. I felt like a 20-year-old risk-taking traveler and had never felt more alive. That same night the tour guides took us to a hot spring, which had the same effect. I’ve had other mountaintop experiences here too—sitting on the beach in February, hiking up a mountain, seeing a real-life sloth, and the list goes on.

Seen on our 4+ hour drive. I will never get over how beautiful the scenery is here!

View of the volcano!

Swimming in this waterfall was both refreshing and exhilarating!

I’ve come to the conclusion that although those mountaintop experiences were incredible, the most important part of being here is the valleys. Sometimes I can’t stand speaking Spanish anymore and get frustrated with myself, but I’ll never forget the time I was at the supermarket and understood the cashier saying the price for the first time (you try saying “mil quinientos noventa y cinco” five times fast). Learning Spanish is a long and sometimes difficult process, but this week I have started my internship at a school in the local neighborhood, and I have realized how special it is to be able to communicate with someone in their first language, even if they know some English. I never thought hanging out with a group of eleventh graders could be a highlight of my day! Not to mention endless hugs and drawings from adorable first graders 🙂

Being here at first was pretty scary. But suddenly I know how to take the bus to the city all by myself. I recognize the cashiers at the local supermarket. I could tell a taxi driver how to get to my house. One day when it was really hot and I had a lot of homework to do, the extended family spontaneously came over for coffee, which was a really fun time, and I could communicate with them pretty well! My host mom is great, but like any family member, she sometimes frustrates me, but that has taught me a lot about living with people and cultural differences. Living everyday life and integrating myself into a family and a neighborhood has taught me more than a week of sightseeing ever could. And it’s those ordinary days that make me never want to leave.

Comida (Food)!

March 15, 2016 / Lindsey Van Der Aa / 0 Comments

One of my favorite parts of traveling is the food! Costa Rica has certainly given me plenty of new things to try, some of which are great…and some of which are not so great. Here’s a collection of some typical Costa Rican food I have enjoyed.

Let’s start with the morning. This is a pretty typical Costa Rican breakfast, including “gallo pinto” (gah-yo-peen-toe) – rice, beans, and vegetables mixed together. Eating rice and beans in the morning seems strange at first, but gallo pinto is really good! Other common items are eggs, bread, fruit, and of course coffee. The white block in the picture is cheese—it has sort of a spongy texture, but it tastes pretty good, and they put it on everything!

Although I don’t eat gallo pinto every day, I certainly don’t go hungry in the morning! 8/10

For lunch, the typical plate is called a “casado.” It includes rice, beans, salad, fried plantains, and sometimes beef or chicken. It’s a cheap, filling, and tasty lunch! Fun fact: In Costa Rica, lunch is considered the biggest and most important meal of the day. Quite a contrast to the U.S. where we are constantly eating lunch on the go or while working!

Lunch at the university cafeteria. Super cheap and quite different from Founder’s! 9/10

One of the most typical dishes of Costa Rica is “arroz con pollo” (rice with chicken). They eat it so much that sometimes they substitute the word for chicken with the word for always (siempre). Hence, “arroz con siempre” (roughly translated “rice with always”). It’s one of my favorite dishes!

This dinner also included fried plantains and cucumber salad. 10/10

This is a pretty typical dinner at my house. A pork chop, white rice, beans, salad, and fried plantains. Fresh, homemade fruit drinks are also very typical—the one in the background here is pineapple—my personal favorite!

Pretty hard to go a day here without rice and beans. 8/10

A picture of a fruit drink at a restaurant in San José—“mora” (blackberry).

An upgrade from soda, I have to say. 10/10

I thought I knew what I was getting into when my friends’ host mom served us “perros calientes” (hot dogs), but it was very different than I expected! This is a hot dog with cabbage, potato chips, and a mayonnaise and ketchup sauce. Not the best hot dog I’ve ever eaten, but it was an interesting (and messy) experience.

Not bad, but I prefer Chicago style. 7/10

Costa Rica has a lot of different fruits that we don’t have in the U.S. A few I’ve tried are granadilla, cas, and tamarin. This particular fruit is a guanabana—it has a weird texture but good flavor! (Also, the fruits that are the same are WAY better here—pineapple, bananas, melon, to name a few).

The juice is better than the fruit. 6/10

Another new fruit I’ve tried is called pejivalle. (pay-hee-vah-yay). It has the texture of a potato but a different flavor. It is typically eaten with mayonnaise. Another thing I wouldn’t eat again but am glad I tried!

We had this at breakfast a few days ago. 5/10

I love yogurt. In the States, I barely go a day without it. I was a little disappointed to find out that the only yogurt people seem to like here is in liquid form, but once I tried it, I was hooked!

It comes in a variety of flavors, but my personal favorite is “frutas tropicales” (tropical fruit). 10/10

Finally, a blog of Costa Rican food would not be complete without POPS. This ice cream/smoothie shop never fails to satisfy a craving for a cold treat on a hot day. You can find one on nearly every corner!

Strawberry smoothie = perfection. 11/10

The British Isles: 2 week post-finals / pre-internship solo trip

March 12, 2016 / kbouman / 0 Comments

Unless you know and can explain the difference between England, Great Britain, the UK, and the British Isles, you should probably check out this video by CGP Grey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10. Instead of being pedantic by clarifying all of these differences, I’m just going to go, and am going to expect you as the readers to understand these differences. The video makes things sufficiently clear, so this is on you.

For convenience, I do call this my “UK trip,” even though I was also in Ireland. However, Ireland was such a small part of the trip that I feel comfortable ignoring my own pedantry and saving a few syllables. “UK trip” is three, while “British Isles” is 4, and doesn’t tell you anything about what was done.

Anyway, let’s start with the itinerary.

2 nights London
1 night Coventry
2 nights Dublin
3 nights Edinburgh
1 night in Yorkshire
3 nights in Caernarfon (pronounced something like “ka-NAR-ven”)
1 night in Oxford
3 nights in Cambridge

And then back to Stuttgart.

Now some overall reactions to the trip as a whole.

[GRUB]

The food and drinks were exactly as good as I would have expected english food and drinks to be – not very. Certainly palatable for a short period of time, but not world-class cuisine. I came back to Germany and remembered that bread had flavor. Within a day, I went out for my first Hefeweizen in too long, and it was heavenly.

Fish and chips are okay, but definitely not the kind of thing you want to have too often. Haggis is far from yucky, but still probably not for everybody. There were some meat pies in Wales that weren’t terrible, but certainly not exceptional either. Guinness pretty smooth, and really easy to drink a lot of, but not really that great next to what I’m used to here. There are also some good English, Scottish, and Welsh ales, but they just weren’t the same.

The best food options I came across were pizza (not English), Chicken Tikka Masala (kind of English, but disguised as Indian), and Chipotle (American/Mexican-ish). The Chipotle was even bland compared to what I’m used to in the US, but I hadn’t had any since July, so I’m certainly not complaining. Plenty of places also had pretty good burgers.

Ritter Sport never costs 1.49, of anything (in Europe), never mind the exchange rates that would make it cost even more. This is a scandal! And I promise I’m not just being bitter for having forgotten to bring any of my own from Germany. Just kidding. I totally am.

[CURRENCY]

The coins were mostly completely stupid, but they did have some redeeming aspects. I might go into more detail later about why the Great British Pound coins suck, but to keep my blood pressure down, I’m going to try to focus on this single really really cool part: The Shield.

This single piece of great design almost completely makes up for the lazy design elsewhere in the same coins.

[ACCOMMODATIONS]

Two weeks was an awfully long time to be moving around and keeping busy. Maybe too long. It was REALLY nice to come back to the comfort and security of Germany. Hostels are far from luxurious accommodation, and the buses (“coaches” as they’re referred to – incorrectly in my opinion) and trains weren’t quite as convenient for outsiders as they are in Germany.I also spent the entire time washing my clothes in sinks with the same bar of soap I used to wash myself. Three shirts and a single pair of pants for the whole time was certainly pushing things, particularly in my desire to stand in front of a sink to do my laundry.

Some of the hostels were nice. The one in Caernarfon was within spitting distance of both the castle and the nearest body of water, and the owners had brought home a puppy two days before I arrived. Edinburgh reminded me of the Harry Potter dormitories, and was full of really cool people. Cambridge had a pretty nice hostel with some environmentally friendly something or other initiative thingy thing (I was excited to go back to Germany at that point, so didn’t particularly care).

There was a wide variety of hostel quality though, and I’ve already mentioned the good ones. London found me at the way-top of a triple-bunked bed, and the luggage lockers did not work at all – but the location was great. The Dublin hostel was full of all kinds of people who were there for the party scene – not my favorite kinds of travelers. The oxford hostel was sketchy and with sketchy clientele, and the staff wasn’t that great at pretending to be friendly or helpful or good at speaking English. And none of these places had consistent internet access that they claimed to have.

That’s probably enough. I’ll focus on specific highlights in a subsequent post. Ultimately, I had a sufficiently good time, though I am not eager to repeat this any time in the near future.

Let’s go to Barcelona!

February 21, 2016 / econtreras / 0 Comments

So this is long overdue. After my trip to Morocco, I had 5 days off in which I could travel anywhere before class started. I decided to go to Barcelona and let me tell you, I had a blast!

It was a bit of a struggle to plan this trip as a couple of girls and I, we were going on this trip together, didn’t finalize our plans until literally the day before we left for Morocco, so it was very last minute. Also, we had no idea what we were going to do in Barcelona, we just knew we were going. Good plan. We vacillated at first between a few different options like Portugal, Swiss Alps, and Scotland, but nobody could decide what we wanted. Word of advice?.. Though we had a fantastic and I don’t think it could have gone any better even if we had planned it all, don’t leave it all till the last minute. Talk about a panic attack.

So here we go, embarking on a trip to Barcelona where we have no idea what we’re doing. Oh, by the way, we knew for a fact that we had to watch the Cheetah Girls 2 as it takes place in Barcelona.

First day in Barcelona and we are totally disoriented. We had no idea how to get where we were going and even though a friend and I are fluent in Spanish, we still had trouble communicating because, you may not know, in Barcelona they speak Catalan. Catalan is a language that came from French and Spanish mixed together. It’s a little weird. So here we are, trying to speak English and Spanish to the bus driver and trying to find a common language. It was quite an experience for me. Besides my trip to Morocco I have never really had a difficult time being able to understand people. We somehow managed to find our way to the hostel after wandering around for a little bit. In comparison to Granada, Barcelona is bigger and set up a little differently.

So many things happened in Barcelona it’s too much to write about, so instead I’ll highlight some of my favorite.

These are a few pictures from the Basilica de Santa Maria. It is breathtakingly beautiful! It is around 600 years old and the only surviving cathedral in pure catalan gothic style.

On our first night as we were wandering around, we wound up by the shore and in good timing because there was a circus! Of course we HAD to go in. It was great because that night the tickets were half off, so we got front row seats! It lasted about two hours and it was full of acrobatics and little skits. The ringmaster spoke mainly in Catalan so again we didn’t really have any idea what he was saying. Imagine living in a country were there are 4 official languages and you just have to run through them all to find a way to communicate. You don’t really think about that in the USA because the official language is English and most everyone can speak it. Yea, there are other languages that are spoken but you are not hard-pressed to learn them. I just thought that was interesting and felt the need to share. It is an interesting thought.

Alright, up next is my favorite! La Sagrada Familia. It is one of the largest cathedral’s in the world and it is absolutely BREATHTAKING. I cannot even begin to describe to you how enormous and beautiful this building is. It was built by a Catalan architect, Antoni Gaudi, who died in 1926. At the time of his death, the cathedral was not even a fourth complete and believe it or not, it’s still in construction today! It is estimated to be finished by 2030 I think, so it still has a while to go. Can you even imagine that?!

There is so much detail you could spend forever and not see all of it.

I loved Barcelona so much that I am going back again for my Spring Break and I cannot wait! So hurray for Barcelona round 2 but until then, Lisbon, Portugal here I come! (Feb. 26-28)

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