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Returning to the Cars

Spring Break Part IV: Crete

April 3, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Rethymo

Our ferry from Athens docked in Heraklion, Crete at 6:00, making it our second early morning in a row.  The weather matched our feelings; rain and a hostilely cold wind greeted us as we trudged from the shipyard to the bus station.  After an hour and a half’s ride to Rethymno, the city that would be our home for the next few days, nearly the entire group elected to take a long nap.  When we awoke several hours later, we found that we had slept through the inclement weather and awoke to the sun just coming out from behind the clouds.  In the increasingly warm temperatures we explored the city, adjoining beach, and made plans for the next two days with our extremely helpful hostel owner, Ivan.

Walk to Balos Beach

 

We were advised to rent cars because doing so would be cheaper than taking buses and would give us far greater mobility (you only have to be 18 and have a US drivers license to rent in Crete).  We got off to a bit of a late start the first morning, so instead of following our original plan and driving all the way to the opposite coast we decided to attempt to find Balos Beach at the northwestern tip of the island.  However, as we drove closer the condition of the road grew increasingly worse (maybe the road costs too much to maintain during the offseason?).  We ended up parking our cars along the side of the road and walked 5 kilometers to the beach.  At the beach we found our compensation for coming weeks earlier than other tourists:  we were the only ones on the beach!  The beautiful turquoise water (warm enough to swim in) was framed by sand and enclosed by the surrounding foothills.  But seeing as how we still had a long walk back to our cars, as soon as the sun began to set into the Mediterranean horizon we started retracing our steps towards our vehicles.  This time, instead of the view looking out to the sea, the walk back was towards a small coastal village nestled below the snowcapped mountains.

Returning to the Cars

During the second day in Crete we had intentions of visiting a pair of caves, but once again we ran into the problem of traveling during the offseason.  Both were closed.  However, our switchback route among the mountains left us within a relatively short drive of Preveli Beach.  Although the day was a little cold for swimming, Preveli Beach is adjacent to a palm forest.  After spending an hour or two alongside of the river running through this forest, we returned home at a slower rate to admire the view from the tops of gorges in the mountains.

Returning from Preveli Beach

The last day of our spring break was perfect.  Instead of stretching out the vacation by trying to do too much, we essentially took the day off.  After sleeping in, we stopped at a crepe stand (we had gotten to know the employees rather well by our third day) and for ice cream.  After this brunch, we visited the Fortezza in Rethymno for an hour or so and spent the rest of the day relaxing on the beach and enjoying the sun – forming the perfect ending to Spring Break!

Walk to Preveli Beach

 

 

 

 

Missed an earlier destination?  Take a look at my visits to Venice, Rome, and Athens!

Also, see more photos on Picasa or follow me on Twitter!

 

Actions Speak Louder than Words

April 2, 2012 / / 0 Comments

After a little over three weeks of traveling to various parts of Southern Africa, learning and seeing and experiencing many things, I am finally back to Windhoek about to start my last month in Africa.  While time has gone by so fast and I don’t doubt that April will bring many great things as well, the past three weeks have definitely been my favorite part of my experience here.  From the rural homestay in northern Namibia, to game drives in Etosha National Park, to Spring Break in Victoria Falls, It has all been a wonderfully enlightening few weeks and I’m blessed to be able to have had opportunities so great.

Because I’ve been so busy the past month, I’ll split up some of my experiences into different posts, but I’ll start with our rural homestay and trip to the North.

Tuesday, March 6 we left for Outapi, which is a town in the very northern part of Namibia, almost to the Angolan border.  When we arrived that evening we met our host families right away.  My host mother’s name was Albertina and she was basically the mother of the community.  I called her Meme (mother). She was 76 years old, had about 10 teeth and was one of the most joyful, loving people I have ever met. She spoke no English, only Oshiwambo, which made communicating quite difficult, but luckily some of her grandkids spoke some broken English which really helped a lot.

When we got back to the house, I met everyone I would be living with during the week.  Somehow they were all related, but I could never keep track of who actually lived at the house and who was in Albertina’s immediate family.  Everyone was wonderful though.  I lived with Sacky, who was about 30, Ndategako and Paulus who were both in high school, Albertina and Johnny who were both in primary school and two little ones, Saara and Ephraim.  They gave me Sacky’s room to sleep in which was really the only room with four walls; everyone else slept in huts, which were beautifully crafted of sticks and straw. At first I thought my room was lovely, until I woke up to a snake crawling on my pillow and I then wished I was sharing a hut with someone.

The kiddies and I!

Despite the snake incident, I loved spending time with my family.  While during the day I traveled around with the program, I would arrive back with my family around 3 every day.  When I got home, I would either work in the fields with the kids, (They were impressed with my skills, said my mother had good hands and raised me right. Props ma!) or we would play soccer.  I brought them a soccer ball and they absolutely loved it.  They could play for hours and it was so neat to see them get so excited over one thing.  I let Ndategako braid my whole head one day.  It looked….nice.  I also taught the kids how to play the card game UNO.  They loved it and we would play for hours until the point that our candle burned down to about an inch. They never let me help cook dinner or anything because I was their guest, but I wished they would have because I wanted to act as part of the family.

Johnny playing soccer!

One of the last days we had a cookout with all of the other students and families.  It was so fun to get together and see everyone and eat lot of delicious food.  Each family gave us a traditional Oshiwambo skirt or dress to wear and we all looked so great.  During the party there was dancing and singing and it was such a nice time.  Our host families wanted us all to sing a song, so naturally we chose the National Anthem.  Not the best idea on our part, but nevertheless they loved our discordant voices.

The group!

Staying with my host family really made me think about a lot of things.  It made me think about the idea of poverty, and that although they had no electricity or running water they were perfectly content with their lives and didn’t really see the need for those things.  So in my American mind, I considered them to be living in poverty, but in their community, they were perfectly blessed and happy with their life.  Its really all a matter of perspective and I learned it is so important to keep an open mind when going into situations like this.

It also made me really think about the importance of non-verbal communication and how impactful it can be. Because my Meme didn’t know any English and the kids only knew a little, at first it was difficult to communicate, but by the end of the week I had learned some of their language and we had found a way to communicate. Also, even though I could never really understand my Meme’s words, I could always understand her actions.  She was always so kind and generous, loving and joyful to me that I was so grateful to be living with her.  She would always give me the biggest smiles and hugs and I could tell she loved that I was there and that I was trying my best to engage with her and her family.  She really touched my heart when she gave me a special necklace at the end of the week and really showed me the meaning of the phrase, “Actions speak louder than words,” through her enthusiastic love.  I will never forget my Meme and this experience with my host family.

MEME!

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The Taste of Belgium

March 29, 2012 / / 0 Comments

During our pre-departure meetings we were warned that there would be a time during the semester where we will be sick, it was inevitable. So naturally after having been told this, I disagreed with this warning and had complete confidence in my strong immune system. Well a few weeks ago, I was kicked off my high horse and got sick. Instead of doing the responsible thing and lying low for a few days, I decided to spend the weekend in Bruges, Belgium. And I am definitely glad my desire to travel outweighed my desire to stay in bed the entire weekend.

One of Bruges' many canals

We only had a regular two day weekend, so we figured why not go to Belgium? So I packed up the whopping two Tylenol Cold Medicine pills I had brought with me and left after classes. After probably spreading the love of  cold season to the entire train car, we arrived in Bruges. Though it was eleven o’clock at night, the moment we walked into town, I knew I would love the city. The next morning after taking some extra tea bags for the road, we wandered around Bruges. If I thought Bruges was pretty at night, it was even more adorable during the day. We first went to the local market where there were stands ranging from fresh fish to hand crafted jewelry. After spending some time and money there we decided to experience a real Belgian Waffle. And let me tell you, there is a reason why they are called Belgian waffles. Even in my drowsy state where nothing tasted good, that had to be the best waffle I have ever had. What better to do after eating a little taste of heaven than to go on a brewery tour with a very charismatic tour guide and buy a basket of French fries (ironically enough they were invented in Belgium). We continued eating our way through Bruges by going to an old fashion chocolate shop to taste Belgium chocolate. Belgium was definitely three for three that day.

Once we were full of Belgian classics, we started to make our way back to Germany, starting with a train ride at eleven o’clock at night and spending the night in the Welkenraedt Train Station platform. The city of Welkenraedt just didn’t have the same appeal as Bruges did at three in the morning. Finally morning came and we were able to make it back to Reutlingen. Once the sense of the night’s adventures faded, my cold systems began to make themselves known again. And the six hour nap that followed was much needed. However, I do not regret traveling while being sick because I was able to experience so much and tour around one of my favorite cities. What I do regret is my lack thereof cold medicine.

Brewery Tour

Check out more of my study abroad photos at https://plus.google.com/photos/113496106333285759017/albums?banner=pwa

Spring Break Part III: Traveling through Athens

March 26, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Odeon of Herodes Atticus

Our travel plans for the day consisted of taking a train from Rome to the airport, catching a flight to Athens, a nine hour layover (during which we would explore the city for a few hours), and then ferrying overnight to Crete.  For me, the most noticeable transition between Italy and Greece was the language difference.  I’m not at all fluent in Italian, but Italian being one of the Romance languages I was surprised how easy it was to pick up the general idea of what someone was saying, even if I couldn’t understand word for word.  Similarly, I could read enough Italian to get where I wanted to go and pronounce enough to say “thank you” and order food without much difficulty.

In Greece, it was the complete opposite.  Without obvious social cues it was almost impossible to understand speech.  As for reading, there are different ways of writing Greek.  There are the Greek characters, and then there is the English transliteration.  Even the English version was very difficult to pronounce.  Being so different, I was surprised how hard it was to even remember phrases.  I don’t think I was able to remember how to say “thank you” for longer than 15 minutes.

Acropolis and Parthenon

 

Acropolis

Athens itself was less than impressive.  Granted, my negative impression may have partially been due to the icy wind and threatening rainclouds, but I’m glad a whole day wasn’t spent in Athens.  Also, one has to factor in the economic difficulties Greece is currently undergoing.  Even though it was offseason for tourists, the city was very dirty in comparison to others, especially Venice.  After our first Greek lunch we only had time to visit one major site, but we found the Parthenon was both closed and covered in scaffolding.  However, the top of Philopappou Hill gave us a fantastic view for miles around the city.

Some of the best memories from Athens were of the countless stray dogs throughout the city.  I expected them to be somewhat unfriendly and constantly attempting to steal food, but this wasn’t the case.  All you had to do was treat them nicely – pet and sit with them for a while – and they would follow you around like guards, barking at and scaring off the aggressive beggars and street vendors that would try to approach you.  Then, at the end of their territory, they would nudge you one last time as if to say “bye” and sadly watch you walk away.

 

Leaving Athens

As darkness started to cover Athens, we arrived at our ferry and boarded for the nine hour ride to the last destination of spring break:  Crete!

 

 

Missed an earlier part?  Look at Part I or Part II

Also, see more photos on Picasa or follow me on Twitter!

St. Peter's Basilica

Spring Break Part II: Rome

March 25, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Colosseum

The second segment of my spring break was spent in Rome, Italy.  Barring a little difficulty with Eurail passes, the train ride from Venice to Rome was a wonderful transition.  The hills of northern Italy around Florence made for a gorgeous train ride south towards Rome.

Because we didn’t have long in Rome, we attempted to hit as many major sites as we could in the time we had.  One of the nearest sites to our hostel was the Colosseum.  Although we never actually went inside, we spent a lot of time in the area taking pictures (and learning about tourist traps).

From the Colosseum the road leads north past the extensive Roman Forum to the Piazza Venezia.  And from there (after a quick stop for more gelato) another short walk to the Trevi Fountain.  Although most of the city was far from crowded during early March, the fountain was crawling with people.  While many were tourists (one couple was having their wedding photos taken), you could easily tell this was a hotspot for pickpockets as unsuspecting tourists turned their backs towards the fountain and threw a few cents over their shoulder.  However, as with all big cities if you pay attention and watch each others’ backs there is little to worry about.

St. Peter's Basilica

During our only full day in Rome we caught a bus to Vatican City.  After staying in St. Peter’s Square for a while, we proceeded to enter St. Peter’s Basilica.  Our afternoon arrival was perfect timing; rays of sunlight were perfectly displayed across the altar.  The entire cathedral is filled with centuries of art.  Every carving and ornately painted ceiling is worth admiring.  Deeper into the Basilica is a wall remembering the entire line of popes starting with St. Peter and ending with the current Pope Benedict XVI.  The bus route taking us back to the main part of Rome ran along side the River Tiber and went through several other famous sites.

After a last true Italian dinner, it was an early night in preparation for our 4:30 awakening to catch a flight to the next stop on our itinerary…

 

Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore

 

 

Missed Part I?  Check out:  http://blogs.valpo.edu/studyabroad/2012/03/21/spring-break-part-i-venice/

Look at more photos on Picasa at:  https://plus.google.com/photos/112463823006344854498/albums?banner=pwa

Follow me on Twitter at:  https://twitter.com/#!/CambridgeUKJohn

 

 

Let this one play through.

March 25, 2012 / / 0 Comments

One of the things I miss most about home is my computer. More specifically, I miss my computer because my computer is hooked up to a pair of high quality monitor speakers. The clarity of sound which these speakers create is unmatched by the headphones I brought along with me to Cambridge, and none of the speakers at the center come within a mile of their quality. At home, I like to spend a few hours browsing through blogs and discovering new music. It’s nice to discover a new band, and then find that you’ve stumbled onto a blog that posts music from tons of different artists who are extremely similar. Best of all, most of the music is independent and released for free. So, I can get loads of free music legally.

This is a stall in the Cambridge market which I frequent quite often. And, just to let you know, these pictures have little to do with this blog post other than the fact that they were taken in Cambridge.

The trouble with gathering a music collection in this way is that no one is likely to have heard of a band who has only six hundred views on YouTube and maybe a website. Combine this with the fact that I rarely decide to commit each artist’s name to memory, and when I’m asked, “What kind of music do you like?” I’m left stammering, “Well, electronic, but not techno. Kind of folk, but also jazz. Like – what’s the band’s name, I just found them today – like… Well, the songs use lush synths; echoey stuff.” I know how to find what I like, but I discard it all so easily that I have trouble sharing the music with anyone else. Add on top of this the fact that I’m one who enjoys little to no background music when I’m speaking with people – despite the fact that most of the music I enjoy fades easily into the background – and the opportunities for sharing music shrink even lower.

Parker's Piece is a large field near the city centre which I pass on the way to my once a week class at Anglia Ruskin University.

Enjoying music that fades into the background means that it can be hard to share my musical tastes with people because the best experience of this type of music comes when one allows oneself to be completely enveloped by it. For this to happen between multiple people, a large degree of intimacy has to have been already established, because the music, if focused on, requires the people to embark on a journey together in which they drop nearly everything but the raw emotions the music evokes. Depending on what each person is going through, the emotions that arise may be completely different for each person. Sharing this type of music feels akin to meeting someone for the first time and asking them to divulge their innermost thoughts and feelings.

After an intense staring contest, the wax man and I had a heart to heart.

I spoke with a friend from home last night. She wanted to know all about my trip and what had happened so far. Despite being here for a few months, I felt unable to explain to her what had been happening to me so far. Each time I recounted an event to her, I felt as if something was lacking behind what I said. I wasn’t able to completely capture the experience and the way it made me feel. Now I know why.

Studying abroad has been like living within one of those echoey, jazz-folk-electronic songs I enjoy so much. To get everything out of this experience, I’ve had to completely drop everything: culture, home turf, and friends – to name a few. So, when my friend from home asked me to describe my experience, I felt as if a song had been interrupted. The experience isn’t over yet. And, while I could put the song on pause to stop and recount the ways Europe has affected me so far, this is a song I’d rather listen to all the way through.

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View from Rialto Bridge

Spring Break Part I: Venice

March 21, 2012 / / 0 Comments

 

Venetian Sunset

First stop of my spring break:  Venice, Italy.  This beautiful city was the perfect place for the group of us traveling together to start our trip to mainland Europe.  Being a very popular city for tourism, the language barrier is pretty minimal compared to a lot of other places.  Also, the city is on an island, meaning that it is impossible to get too lost while wandering around.  Everything in Venice is within easy walking distance, meaning we never had to deal with potentially confusing public transportation.

Gondola Ride

The Grand Canal winds through the main part of Venice with many other canals interlacing throughout the city.  The local Venetians use boats like most American use cars.  In fact, most houses in Venice have two doors, one with an entrance onto the street and another door opening to a canal.  Due to the water bound nature of the city “the thing” do to while in Venice is go on a gondola ride.  In order to keep the cost of our ride down we didn’t go on a very long one, but we spent over half an hour gliding along the back canals of Venice (which included going by Marco Polo’s house).  The countless bridges throughout the city are very scenic, but few have ramps, making transport difficult for those with strollers or wheelchairs.

Venice has several notable sights that tourists from all over the world come to visit like Rialto Bridge and St. Mark’s Square.  Rialto Bridge was very crowded, but the views of the Grand Canal from the top were amazing.  St. Mark’s Square was great to see both at night and during the day.

View from Rialto Bridge

I enjoyed going to both locations, especially St. Mark’s, but my favorite place in Venice was the walkway along the waterside.  Of course, there are hordes of street vendors attempting to sell just about everything a tourist could be tempted to buy in every popular location.  But because I was traveling during the offseason, most of the others along the waterside were just other tourists like myself looking for a scenic escape from the main part of the city.

 

Besides its canals, Venice is also captivating for others reasons such as its famous glassware, carnival masks, and real Italian food.  I loved the pizza and pasta, but the real treasure of Venice:  gelato!

Ponte della Costituzione

Missed a blog or want to see what else is going on in Cambridge?  Check out: http://blogs.valpo.edu/studyabroad/category/cambridge-england/

Look at more photos on Picasa at:  https://plus.google.com/photos/112463823006344854498/albums?banner=pwa

Follow me on Twitter at:  https://twitter.com/#!/CambridgeUKJohn

 

Brandenberg Gate

Hodgepodge Berlin

March 15, 2012 / / 0 Comments

For our second class trip, we went to Berlin for five days and though it may seem like a long time, we barely skimmed the surface of everything the city has to offer. Germany’s capital, Berlin is known for so many different things. From its history dating back to the 1700’s to the more modern history with being the capital of Nazi Germany and the airlift during the Cold War, Berlin has seen a lot of changes throughout time. With all these changes has come a very unique and lively atmosphere of the city.

Brandenburg Gate

Ampelmännchen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wasn’t sure what to expect when going to Berlin. I had heard about all the different sites to see but whatever preconceived notions I had before going where blown away once we arrived. The city is filled with so many different types of people and interests. On one block, you can  see people who are going to see the newest performance on one of Berlin’s many of stages, history buffs staring at buildings from World War Two, families taking their kids to the zoo, and  shoppers taking full advantage of the open  air markets. With this hodgepodge of a interests, it was hard to choose where to start digging in to the city. We wandered around the markets, toured the famous museums, climbed up a cathedral to have the perfect view of the city, and peopled watched by the Brandenburg Gate.

And then came Berlin at night. If I thought there was too many options during the day, the night was even worse. No offense to Valpo, but every night there are always theater performances, ballets, Jazz lounges, sports bars, and  crazy dance clubs. It was definitely not an issue of what is there to do, but which one to choose from. We tried to experience all the different types of nightlife by going to the clubs, bars, and a musical performance.

Berlin Cathedral

Berlin has definitely made my top ten of my favorite cities. Berlin has definitely kept up with the modern times but doesn’t forget its past. Even coming back exhausted from sensory overload, Berlin still had more to see. I think that even spending years in that city, there would still be more to see. This just gives me another reason to go back to Berlin in the future.

 

Check out more of my pictures from Berlin, as well as the rest of my study abroad trip at https://plus.google.com/photos/113496106333285759017/albums?banner=pwa

 

The Stone Monastery and Jatiel

March 13, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Recently, I had the opportunity to go to Monesterio de Piedra (named after the surrounding river) in southern Aragon and a small pueblo named Jatiel about an hour outside of Zaragoza.

The monastery is located in southern Aragon in the mountains. The drive to get there was interesting because we were constantly weaving up, around, and through the mountains. Other than the city of Calatayud (21,000 in population), there aren’t really many other signs of life for the 90+ minute bus ride.

Destroyed during the Spanish Civil War and never repaired.

What really attracts tourists to the monastery isn’t so much the building itself, but the national park surrounding it. There are a significant number of waterfalls in the park as well as caves and great views of the Spanish countryside. We took the main trail around the park which took a few hours, ate at a restaurant at the front of the park, and then toured the monastery. This took up all but a half hour of our time before the bus came to pick us up. I’m not really the type to go hiking but I really enjoyed myself and I suspect nature aficionados could spend a few days there.

I also visited a very small pueblo about an hour outside of Zaragoza called “Jatiel.” The town has a population of around 50 people. I learned that the people were encouraged to move from the pueblos to the cities during the Franco regime so there are a number of ghost towns in Spain even smaller than Jatiel. I was able to go because my host sister invited me to go with her boyfriend and their friends and since I’m here to learn more about the Spanish language and culture, I couldn’t say no even if I had wanted to.

The area around the city is extremely dry and I would say a kind of semi-desert. The dirt is a reddish-brown and there are quite a few rock formations on the outskirts of the town. There really wasn’t much to do in the town other than take pictures and take in the fresh air and open space but I really enjoyed myself since I hadn’t had a break from city life since I came here.

With these two trips under my belt, I’ve really begun to take notice of how stunning the Spanish countryside is. Zaragoza is a flat city and you can never really see anything outside of the city because of the tall buildings. Going on these two trips was a good way to experience a different side of Spain that I hadn’t yet had the chance to see.

A farmhouse on the outskirts of the pueblo

If you’d like to hear more about my day-to-day experiences, you can follow me on Twitter.

If you’d like to see more pictures (which I would recommend since I recently uploaded almost 600), check out my Picasa web albums here.

I’ll be writing a blog over Lisbon, Portugal soon which you can view the photos I took (nearly 300) now. Tomorrow I’m heading to London so lots of traveling the last two weeks.

Thanks for reading and until next time!

 

UK Attractions

March 8, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Having been overseas for eight weeks now I’ve had the chance to do quite a bit of traveling around Britain.  So, on the eve of my Spring Break I thought I would catch up with a quick blog on some of the locations I’ve visited on the island:

 

Bath

The first thing you notice when entering Bath is the uniform architecture throughout the city.  Nearly every street is worth taking a few pictures of.  The city is home to several notable sites, including the Royal Crescent, the Jane Austen Centre, Bath Abbey, and the Royal Victoria Park.  And of course, the famous Roman baths.  Although this was the first time I encountered large numbers of tourists at a site, I was still able to enjoy the experience of walking through the ancient location.  The picture is of the hot spring that is the source of all the water.  By the time it flows into the main baths the water will be cool enough to comfortably bathe in.

 

 

Castles

No trip to through Europe would be complete without a few castles, and the photo below is of Warwick Castle, which is the first one I visited in Britain.  In spite of the rather touristy nature of the castle today, it is still easy to comprehend the original nature of its location.  The castle is situated on the top of a hill and is defensible from all sides.  From the top of the castle you can see for miles, even in England’s typically foggy weather.  One of my favorite attractions from this location was watching the falconer’s birds dive at up to 200 mph.

 

 

Stonehenge

Although Stonehenge is set in a lonely location between two highways and surrounded by fields, it is one of the world’s most famous sites for a reason.  The stones weigh between 4 and 40 tons each, and come from many miles away.  Also, Stonehenge is oriented to frame the rising sun during the summer solstice and the setting sun during the winter solstice.  The weather was abnormally cold and windy when I visited Stonehenge (you can see the snow), but this kept a lot of other tourists indoors, leading to several good pictures of the site.  While tourists are now confined to the path surrounding Stonehenge, there are actually several other places in Britain that are similar, one or two of which I plan to stop at before the end of the semester.

 

 

 

Missed a blog or want to see what else is going on in Cambridge?  Check out:  http://blogs.valpo.edu/studyabroad/category/cambridge-england/

See more photos on Picasa at:  https://plus.google.com/photos/112463823006344854498/albums?banner=pwa

Follow me on Twitter at:  https://twitter.com/#!/CambridgeUKJohn

 

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